era, and Legnago, but her
Emperor was already disheartened and disgusted by the fighting.

Napoleon, too, on his side was anxious for peace--most anxious, in fact, to
extricate himself as soon as possible from the dangerous complications in
which his alliance was likely to land him. On the eve of Solferino he had
heard that Prussia, ready for war, was concentrating at Coblenz and
Cologne, and he knew well there was no army in France capable of much
resistance. He began, too, to realize that success pressed home might lead
to the formation on the south-east border of France of a new--and perhaps
formidable--Italian power; a possibility he had not considered when he
planned with Cavour at Plombieres their secret alliance against Austria.
The war was now becoming unpopular with far-sighted Frenchmen precisely
because its success plainly tended towards this issue; and, in addition,
the formation of such a kingdom, by implying the confiscation of the Papal
territories, was most distasteful to his Catholic subjects, with whom
Napoleon already stood badly and wished to stand better. After a brief
armistice, he proposed terms of peace to Austria, which were signed at
Villafranca on July 9th. They ran as follows:

Lombardy was to be surrendered to France and then handed over to Italy; the
Italian States were to be formed into a Federation under the honorary
presidency of the Pope (this was intended to soothe French Catholics);
Venetia, while remaining under Austrian rule, was to be a member of the
Federation, and the Dukes of Tuscany and Modena were to resume their
thrones. Napoleon wished to add a further stipulation that neither side
should use their armies to secure this latter object, but over this there
rose so much haggling that the outcome was only an understanding between
the two Emperors (not committed to paper) that Austria would not oppose the
establishment of constitutional government in those States, should they
themselves desire it, but at the same time she retained by her silence her
right to interfere for other reasons; while France on her side asserted
that she would neither restore the Dukes by force of arms herself nor--and
here lay a point of great importance--allow Austria to interfere should she
act upon the right she had reserved.

As may be imagined, to men who had set their hearts on a free united Italy,
such a treaty was exasperating. However aware Victor Emmanuel might be that
he owed much to France,