el but the instrument
of Italian independence.'

This way of talking was not confined to private despatches, and it was
no wonder if the Italians were disappointed when they found that
England declined to plead their cause with the Allies in Paris, and
afterwards at Vienna. When charged directly with breach of faith
before the House of Commons, Lord Castlereagh said that Austria, being
'in truth the great hinge on which the fate of mankind must ultimately
depend,' had to be paid (this was exactly the sense, though not the
form, of his defence) by letting her do what she liked with Italy.
There is a certain brutal straightforwardness in the line of argument.
Lord Castlereagh did not say that independence was not a good thing.
He had tried to obtain it for Poland and had failed; he had not tried
to obtain it for Italy, because he was afraid of offending Austria. At
least he had the courage to tell the truth, and did not prate about
the felicity of being subjects of the Austrian Emperor, as many
English partisans of Austria prated in days to come.

The political map of Italy in the summer of 1814 showed the Pope (Pius
VII.) reinstated in Rome, Victor Emmanuel I. at Turin, Ferdinand III.
of Hapsburg-Lorraine in Tuscany, the Genoese Republic for the moment
restored by the English, Parma and Piacenza assigned to the Empress
Marie-Louise, and Modena to the Austrian Archduke Francis, who was
heir through the female line to the last of the Estes. Murat was still
at Naples, Ferdinand IV. in Sicily, Austria acknowledged supreme in
Lombardy and Venetia, and the island of Elba ironically handed over to
Napoleon. These were the chief features, so far as Italy was
concerned, of the Treaty of Paris, signed on the 30th of May 1814.
Next year the Congress of Vienna modified the arrangement by providing
that the Spanish Infanta Maria Louisa, on whom had been bestowed the
ex-republic of Lucca, should have the reversion of Parma and Piacenza,
while Lucca was to go in the end to Tuscany. Murat having been
destroyed, the Neapolitan Bourbons recovered all their old
possessions. San Marino and Monaco were graciously recognised as
independent, which brought the number of Italian states up to ten. The
Sardinian monarchy received back the part of Savoy which by the Treaty
of Paris had been reserved to France. It was also offered a splendid
and unexpected gift--Genoa.

Lord William Bentinck entered Genoa by a convention concluded with the
autho