OH, 25x.) TE® ITALIAN QUESTION. 735

frich, which gave definitive shape to the preliminaries 1860.
‘greed upon between Napoleon and Francis Joseph at Villa- Zr. 56.
franca (July 11, 1859), had been signed during Cobden’s
hort visit to London in November.
~ The base of these Treaties, which proved the most abso-‘wely
 abortive documents in the whole history of diplomacy,
Vas the proposed formation of an Italian Confederation
under the honorary presidency of the Pope; the cession of
Lombardy, save the two great fortresses of Peschiera and
Mantua, to the King of Sardinia; admission of Venetia
So the Italian Confederation, while remaining a posses-S0n
 of Austria; the restoration of the Dukes of Tuscany
ind Modena. There was, at the moment when Cobden saw
Prince Metternich, no prospect of a single article of either
Treaty being realized. The Grand Dukes dared not enter
‘heir former dominions. The Romagna would not receive
Sack the agents of the Pope. The Italians would have
bothing to say to a Confederation, and insisted on unity.
The Pope protested, in language that was more energetic
than, saintly, against all that had been done, and denounced
% pamphlet which was known to be written by the French
Emperor as a monument of hypocrisy and an ignoble tissue
'f contradictions."
The deadlock of the moment was unique. The force of
Yircumstances had brought the European powers to a policy
f non-intervention, not by their own free will, but because
the peril of departing from it was grave and instant. The
Bmperor of Austria and the Emperor of the French were
*qually bound by the Treaty of Zurich, but the Treaty of
lurich was desperate. Lord Palmerston and Lord John
Russell, whose sympathies were generously given to the
“augs of Italy, were inclined to a course which might not

! “The Emperor is decidedly too fond of seeing himself in print,” Cobdes
"Tote in bis journal, when Le Paps ¢ le Congrés appeared.