For once Italians were allowed to do as they wished in their
own country instead of being compelled by foreign powers to do as those
powers commanded. Many things concurred to bring about this result. The
French Emperor had just received Savoy and Nice; he had been spending
the blood and treasure of France in giving the first blow to the old
despotisms of Italy; how could he now fly in the face of his own
principle of the national will in order to save the worst of those
despotisms? He could not declare that Sicilians and Neapolitans should
not dare have the opportunity of doing what he had at last permitted in
Central Italy and profited by in Nice and Savoy. To have allowed Austria
to do so would be to stultify himself in the eyes of Europe, to enrage
Italians, and to lead France to ask what was the use of calling on her
to make sacrifices for the overthrow of Austrian domination in the
Peninsula if within a few months that domination was to be in a large
measure restored.
Austria too had her own difficulties to encounter, and they were both
numerous and complicated.
Pages:
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749