AUSTRIA AND ITALY; A CRISIS AT HAND.

63

time when the smothered flames would break out in one general conflagration. Austria saw all this with declared uneasiness, and seemed inclined to interfere. This it was Lord Palmerston's object, if possible, to prevent.

F. O.: February 11, 1848.

My dear Ponsonby,-I send you an important despatch to be communicated to Prince Metternich, and I wish you to recommend it to his most serious consideration. It is worded, I trust, in such a way as not to be liable to give offence; but it must be understood as meaning and implying more than it expresses. The real fact is, that upon Metternich's decision in regard to the affairs of Italy depends the question of peace or war in Europe. If he remains quiet, and does not meddle with matters beyond the Austrian frontiers, peace will be maintained, and all these Italian changes will be effected with as little disturbance as is consistent with the nature of things. If he takes upon himself the task of regulating by force of arms the internal affairs of the Italian States, there will infallibly be war, and it will be a war of principles which, beginning in Italy, will spread over all Europe, and out of which the Austrian Empire will certainly not issue unchanged. In that war England and Austria will certainly not be on the same side-a circumstance which would occasion to every Englishman the deepest regret. In that war, whatever Louis Philippe and Guizot may promise, the principal champions contending against each other would be Austria and France; and I would wish Metternich well and maturely to consider what would be the effect on the internal condition of Germany which would be produced by a war between Austria and France, in which Austria was engaged in crushing and France in upholding constitutional liberty. would be well for Prince Metternich to calculate beforehand, not merely what portion of the people of Germany he could count upon as allies in such a contest, but how many of the Governments even would venture to take part with him in the struggle. If he wished to throw the greater part of Germany into close alliance with France, he could not take a better method of doing so.

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He best knows the disposition of his own States; but I should greatly doubt his receiving any support in such a struggle from Hungary or Bohemia; and he would of course have all the Emperor's Italian subjects against him.

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When one comes to reflect upon all the endless difficulties and embarrassments which such a course would involve, one cannot believe that a statesman so prudent and calculating, so long-sighted and so experienced, could fall into such an error; but the great accumulation of Austrian troops in the Lombard and Venetian provinces inspires one with apprehension.

The recent debates in the French Chambers will have shown to Prince Metternich how little he can count upon the support or even the neutrality of France; and he may depend upon it, that in defence of constitutional liberty in Italy the French nation would rush to arms, and a French army would again water their horses in the Danube.

Pray exert all your persuasion with the Prince to induce him to authorise you to send us some tranquillising assurances on this matter. We set too great a value upon the maintenance of Austria as the pivot of the balance of power in Europe to be able to see without the deepest concern any course of action begun by her Government which would produce fatal consequences to her, and which would place us probably, against our will, in the adverse scale.

At the same time he was consistently using his influence to keep the Italian Governments in the constitutional path on which they appeared to have entered. Mr. Abercromby was our Minister at the Sardinian Court.

F. O.: February 12, 1848.

My dear Abercromby,-I send you a despatch which I had prepared before I received yours, which reached me this morning, stating that the Cabinet at Turin were deliberating about the grant of a constitution. I hope their deliberation will have ended affirmatively, and in that case our exhortations will apply only to the method of carrying their assent into execution. If they should have refused, you will then have to exert your eloquence in trying to persuade them and the King to reconsider and to reverse their decision. Arguments will not be wanting. If the King resolves to oppose himself to the wishes and demands of his subjects, he must be prepared for one of two courses. He must either abdicate or call in foreign aid. The first alternative would be unwise and unnecessary, and would, moreover, be like a man shooting himself to avoid a danger which might threaten him with death.

As to calling in foreign aid, we cannot believe that, with his

high and patriotic feelings, he would consent to hold his throne by means of French or Austrian bayonets, and to become thereafter the mere puppet of Austria or of France. It is possible, indeed, that he may have a more high-minded feeling on this subject, and that, having committed himself in some way or other against a Constitution, he may think it derogatory to his consistency now to accept one. It is needless to point out how untenable such a notion would be, and how futile any such pledge or any such former resolution ought to be deemed as an obstacle to prevent him from now performing a great and important duty, as Sovereign, towards the nation which Providence has committed to his charge.

From the first moment that one heard that the King of Naples had consented to a Constitution, it was easy to foresee that the rest of Italy must have one too.

To Sir George Hamilton, at Florence, he writes:

I conclude that before this reaches you the question whether there is or is not to be a Constitution in Tuscany will have been decided; but pray do all you can to persuade the Government to yield with good grace to the wishes of the people, and upon no account whatever to think of calling in or of letting in the Austrians to coerce the subjects of the Grand Duke. The first thing of all is national independence, and nothing can make up for the loss of that.

The Revolution at Paris came, however, like a thunder-clap to scatter all the timid compromises and faltering concessions of kings, emperors, and grand-dukes. In France the blind obstinacy of a self-willed King, the corruption of the Government and governing classes, as illustrated by the Cubières-Teste and Petit scandals, and by the Praslin tragedy, the anti-Liberal and unpopular policy of the French Foreign Office, partly the result of estrangement from England caused by the 'Spanish Marriages;' these all had combined to bring to a climax discontent, which a long period of commercial and financial distress had greatly fomented. The different sections of malcontents agreed to unite on the basis of a demand for parliamentary reform. Banquets were organised in different parts of France, when exciting speeches were made, and complaints found audible F

VOL. II.

expression. The Assembly met on the 28th of December. Upon the Address arose a debate, which lasted twenty days, and during which Guizot and Duchatel1 had in vain tried to make head against the attacks of Thiers, Lamartine, Billault, and De Tocqueville. The Ministry kept a servile though a decreasing majority in the divisions which took place; but the victory lay with the others. The debate closed on the 7th of February. "The war of words,' said the National,' on the 9th, 'is at an end. That of deeds is now to come.'

A political banquet, which had been originally fixed for the 19th of January in Paris itself, had been postponed in consequence of an interdiction by the police. On the day after the rejection of the amendment on the Address, the Liberal deputies met and determined to persevere in their design. The revived banquet was fixed for the 22nd, and was publicly announced. At this crisis Louis Philippe's obstinacy showed itself most disastrously. The death of his sister, the Princess Adelaide, a few weeks before, had removed his best counsellor. 'I never will consent to Reform,' he declared with cynical contempt for constitutional doctrine. 'Reform is another word for the advent of the Opposition !'

Vacillation, however, often hangs on the skirts of obstinacy. With Louis Philippe it was always so, and this occasion formed no exception. The Liberal chiefs were as anxious as the Government itself to avoid any violent collision. A compromise was agreed to, by which there was to be a procession, but no banquet. When it appeared likely that the multitude would be great, the authorities took alarm, again changed front, and, on the very morning of the 22nd, covered the walls of Paris with placards forbidding any assembly in the streets. The crowds, however, had collected, and all day thronged the central parts of the city. Their leaders had stayed away.

1 Guizot was a brilliant orator, but neither a statesman nor a man of business. Duchatel had great aptitude, but was an idle man, and not an effective speaker, except on finance.

THE REVOLUTION IN PARIS.

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Lord Normanby sent Lord Palmerston the following record of his personal observations during these events :

Paris: March 13, 1848.

There are some scattered incidents in the last days of Louis Philippe and his Minister which came within my personal observation, which I should like to take this early opportunity of collecting and recording, as they have their bearing upon the great political moral to be derived from the astounding catastrophe.

I ventured, in the middle of last year, to call your lordship's attention to the state of political feeling in the country, and to remark that nothing could save the dynasty of July but an immediate change of men, and measures of reform at once prompt and sincere. Not one measure of a conciliatory description was from that time even contemplated by the Government, and yet there was a moment when the very extent of the general discontent appeared to hold out hopes of a peaceful solution of the question. The danger had always been that the King, supported by a packed majority of the Chamber, would persevere to the last to resist the popular will, but this will had latterly acquired such an irresistible impulse that it had even found its way into the constitutional channels hitherto choked up by corruption. When one saw, in the course of the debates on the Address, the effect of public opinion in reducing even such a majority from 120 to 30, one had even hopes that a vote of the Chamber, by upsetting the Ministry, might preserve the throne. As I attended personally every one of these sittings, which lasted three weeks, I could observe that the decline of the numerical force of the majority was not so strong an indication as the changes in its tone. There was still a disposition on the part of many to prolong, for a short time, the existence of the Ministry, in order to avoid the probable dissolution of the Chamber, but during the whole of that discussion of unexampled length, there was hardly an independent member, or one not actually in office with the Government, who said one word in favour either of their foreign or domestic policy; and it was also remarkable that, often as M. Guizot had upon former occasions recovered himself from surrounding difficulties by the exercise of his extraordinary talent in the tribune, he never once, during the debates on the Address, made a single effective rally.