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1860. Cowley. The latter, after confessing some perplexity i
Zr. 56. making the communication, informed the former that Lord
Palmerston had obtained from some person in the secret &
copy of the plan of the Emperor for seizing on London!
He had also procured from a similar source the information
that the Emperor had entered into an arrangement With
Cavour, by which France was to secure a further aggrandizement
 of territory. Both stories were received 28
laughably untrue. M. Chevalier says there are chevalier
d’industrie who manufacture these marvellous stories, and
sell them to newspapers or to crednlous statesmen. Both the
above canards had, he said, been sold to Lord Palmerston
and by him been transferred to his colleagues of the Cabinet:
“August 2.—In a conversation with M. Rouher, the
Minister of Commerce, he related to me the incident, mentioned
 previously by M. Chevalier, of Lord Cowley having
called on M. Thouvenel, the Foreign Minister, to ask for
an explanation respecting a secret treaty alleged to have
been entered into by France and Sardinia, by which the
latter was to be allowed to annex the whole of the Italian
States on the condition of ceding to the French Emperor
another slice of territory, He described in a graphic way
the embarrassment of the British envoy in disclosing the
delicate object of his visit; how, after many shrugs and
wry faces, and sundry exhortations from the French Minister;
he at last revealed the secret; how this was followed by an
earnest disavowal, on the personal honour of M. Thouvenel,
upon which, after many fresh protestations of regret and
perplexity, Lord Cowley produced from his pocket a copy
of the Treaty, which he handed to the French Minister, who
thereupon laughed heartily, and assured him that it was not
worth the paper on which it was written, and that in fact
the English Government had been the victim of a very
clumsy hoax,