Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

42
Howard R, Marraro
continue. Fifty thousand Fremii troops remain in Lmnbardy, but for wbat employment is not explained or undcrstood.
The pienipotentiaries at Zìi rieh make but little progress in forming a treaty of peace, on the basca agrced on at Vili a franca.
Prince Metternich saw the Emperor Napoleon at St. Sauveur, and procceded to Vienna. The public was astounded to find in the Monileur Unìversel of [lacuna] a copy of which accompanies this despatch,3 ) a most significalit article. a proba­bile sequence of the intervie w, which for the first timc aunounces tbat at the Im­periai Confercnce at Villafranea, the rcstoration of the expelled Grand dukes was, witb the Emperor of Austria, a sine qua non, Such a rcvelation had not been made before, and in diplomatic circles it is considered as too late, now, for realization. It is difficu 11 to understand ho w, without the employment of tnilitary force, this end can be attained, against tbe united and determined purpose of the people. Against this resort France seems to be cominitlcd. A question has thus arisen between the rights dcrived front treaties and tbose which Originate with and appertain to the people. The treaties are in favor of the dethroned ducal fa-milies. The popular voice is, with extraordinary unanimi tv, against them. Complicatcd and threatening as this condition of things appears to be, it seems to me that the Emperor Napoleon has, from the first, contemplated the meeting of a European Congress, with the same powers as belonged to the Congress of Vienna, which adopted the treaties of 1815, and that bis policy, skUfully adopt-ed, has been and is to establish if not to create the necessity of such an assem-blage. The results of the policy, if succcssful, will probably be to remodel if not expungc those treaty stipulations, always regarded as degrading to France, and to impart to Italy a nationality which will largely affect the balance of power in Europe. The ovexshadowing influence of Austria, in Italy, which was one of the assigned causes of the late war, would not be diminished, if the restoration of the Grand Ducal sovereigns shall be effected. In that event, she can count a clear majority in the Italian Diet. In the Congress, the measure will probably be considered a sine qua non.
The present probability is that a European Congress of the Great Powers will supercede the Confercnce at Zurich, and the end will probably be most agreeablc to France, but anything else to Austria.
I cannot doubt that this policy of securing a Congress had governed the Emperor Napoleon throughout. It infiuenced him in making the war and was controlling in its abrupt termination. It prcvailed in the terme of the peacc, which left to Austria Venetia, and accounts for the permission which has been gi ven to the Italian movements for independencc, and has kept back the terms insisted on by Austria in regard to the Grand duchics, untai events have gone so far that nothing but the Congress can prevent the resumption of war, which will threaten to be general.
The disarmarne ni. is illusory. The German States have not disarmed. England seems inclined to increase ber fortiiicatious, and although allowed congé, the Freucb discharged soldiers can be recalled to their Eagles in a few days. Forty thousand seaxnen are detained in France to man her ncets, if circumstauces requirc it. The borscs and mules rendered unnecessary by the
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