Villa Alberti, Siena: August 26 [1859].

Dearest friend, what have you thought of me?

I was no more likely to write to you about the 'peace' than about any
stroke of personal calamity. The peace fell like a bomb on us all, and
for my part, you may still find somewhere on the ground splinters of my
heart, if you look hard. But by the time your letter reached me we had
recovered the blow _spiritually_, had understood that it was necessary,
and that the Emperor Napoleon, though forced to abandon one arena, was
prepared to carry on the struggle for Italy on another.

Therefore I should have answered your letter at once if I had not been
seized with illness. Indeed, my dear, dear friend, you will hear from me
no excuses. I have not been unkind, simply incapable.

I believe it was the violent mental agitation, the reaction from a state
of exultation and joy in which I had been walking among the stars so
many months; and the grief, anxiety, the struggle, the talking, all
coming on me at a moment when the ferocious heat had made the body
peculiarly susceptible; but one afternoon I went down to the Trollopes,
had sight of the famous Ducal orders about bombarding Florence, and came
home to be ill. Violent palpitations and cough; in fact, the worst
attack on the chest I ever had in Italy. For two days and two nights it
was more like _angina pectoris_, as I have heard it described; but this
went off, and the complaint ran into its ancient pattern, thank God, and
kept me _only_ very ill, with violent cough all night long; my poor
Robert, who nursed me like an angel, prevented from sleeping for full
three weeks. When there was a possibility I was lifted into a carriage
and brought here; stayed two days at the inn in Siena, and then removed
to this pleasant airy villa. Very ill I was after coming, and great
courage it required to come; but change of air was absolutely a
condition of living, and the event justified the risk. For now I am
quite myself, have done crying 'Wolf,' and end this lamentable history
by desiring you to absolve me for my silence. We have been here nearly a
month. My strength, which was so exhausted that I could scarcely stand
unsupported, is coming back satisfactorily, and the cough has ceased to
vex me at all. Still, I am not equal to driving out. I hope to take my
first drive in a very few days though, and the very asses are
ministering to me--in milk. All the English physicians had found it
convenient (the beloved Grand Duke being absent) to leave Florence, and
Zanetti was attending the Piedmontese hospitals, so that I had to attend
me none of the old oracles--only a Prussian physician (Dr. Gresonowsky),
a very intelligent man, of whom we knew a little personally, and who had
a strong political sympathy with me. (He and I used to sit together on
Isa Blagden's terrace and relieve ourselves by abusing each other's
country; and whether he expressed most moral indignation against England
or I against Prussia, remained doubtful.) Afterwards he came to cure me,
and was as generous in his profession as became his politics. People are
usually very kind to us, I must say. Think of that man following us to
Siena, uninvited, and attending me at the hotel two days, then refusing
recompense.

Well, now let me speak of our Italy and the peace. 'Immoral,' you say?
Yes, immoral. But not immoral on the part of Napoleon who had his hand
forced; only immoral on the part of those who by infamies of speech and
intrigue (in England and Germany), against which I for one had been
protesting for months, brought about the complicated results which
forced his hand. Never was a greater or more disinterested deed intended
and almost completed than this French intervention for Italian
independence; and never was a baser and more hideous sight than the
league against it of the nations. Let me not speak.

For the rest, if it were not for Venetia (Zurich[65] keeps its secrets
so far) the peace would have proved a benefit rather than otherwise. We
have had time to feel our own strength, to stand on our own feet. The
vain talk about Napoleon's intervening militarily on behalf of the Grand
Duke has simply been the consequence of statements without foundation
in the English and German papers; and also in some French Ultramontane
papers. Napoleon with his own lips, _after the peace_, assured our
delegates that no force should be used. And he has repeated this on
every possible occasion. At Villafranca, when the Emperor of Austria
insisted on the return of the Dukes, he acceded, on condition they were
recalled. He 'did not come to Italy to dispossess the sovereigns,' as he
had previously observed, but to give the power of election to the
people. Before we left Rome this spring he had said to the French
ambassador, 'If the Tuscans like to recall their Grand Duke, _qu'est-ce
que cela me fait_?' He simply said the same at Villafranca.

Count de Reiset was sent to Florence, Modena, and Parma, to
'_constater_,' not to '_impose_,' and the whole policy of Napoleon has
been to draw out a calm and full expression of the popular mind. Nobly
have the people of Italy responded. Surely there is not in history a
grander attitude than this assumed by a nation half born, half
constituted, scarcely named yet, but already capable of self-restraint
and dignity, and magnanimous faith. We are full of hope, and should be
radiant with joy, except for Venetia.

Dearest friend, the war did more than 'give a province to Piedmont.' The
first French charge _freed Italy potentially_ from north to south. At
this moment Austria cannot stir anywhere. Here 'we live, breathe, and
have our national being.' Certainly, if Napoleon did what the 'Times'
has declared he would do--intervene with armed force against the people,
prevent the elections, or _tamper_ with the elections by means of--such
means as he was 'familiar' with; if he did these things, I should cry
aloud, 'Immoral, vile, a traitor!' But the facts deny all these
imputations. He has walked steadily on along one path, and the
development of Italy as a nation is at the end of it.

Of course the first emotion on the subject of the peace was rage as
well as grief. For one day in Florence all his portraits and busts
disappeared from the shop windows; and I myself, to Penini's extreme
disgust (who insisted on it that his dear Napoleon couldn't do anything
wrong, and that the fault was in the telegraph), wouldn't let him wear
his Napoleon medal. Afterwards--as Ferdinando said--'Siamo stati un po'
troppo furiosi davvero, signora;' _that_ came to be the general
conviction. Out came the portraits again in the sun, and the Emperor's
bust, side by side with Victor Emanuel's, adorns the room of our
'General Assembly.' There are individuals, of course, who think that
through whatever amount of difficulty and complication, he should have
preserved his first programme. But these are not the wiser thinkers. He
had to judge for France as well as for Italy. As Mr. Trollope said to me
in almost the first fever, 'It is upon the cards that he has acted in
the wisest and most conscientious manner possible for all,--or it is on
the cards etc.'

The difficulty now is at Naples.

There will be a Congress, of course. A Congress was in the first
programme; after the war, a Congress.

But, dearest Mona Nina, if you want to get calumniated, hated, lied
upon, and spat upon (in a spiritual sense), try and do a good deed from
disinterested motives in this world. That's my lesson.

I have been told upon rather good authority that Cavour's retirement is
simply a feint, and that he will recover his position presently.

What weighs on my heart is Venetia. Can they do anything at Zurich to
modify that heavy fact?

You see I am not dead yet, dear, dearest friend. And while alive at all,
I can't help being in earnest on these questions. I am a Ba, you know.
Forgive me when I get too much 'riled' by your England.

You will know by this time that the 'proposition' you approved of was
French.

What made the very help of Prussia unacceptable to Austria was the
circumstance of Prussia's using that opportunity of Austria's need to
wriggle herself to the military headship of the Confederation. Austria
would rather have lost Lombardy (and more) than have accepted such a
disadvantage. Hence the coldness, the cause of which is scarcely
avowable. Selfish and pitiful nations!

Dear Isa Blagden writes me all the political news of Florence. She is
well, and will come to pay us a visit before long. We remain here till
September ends, and then return to Casa Guidi.

I had a letter from Bologna from Jessie, which threw me into a terror
lest the Mazzinians should come to Italy just in time to ruin us. The
letter (not unkind to me) was as contrary to facts and reason as
possible. I was too ill to write at the time, and Robert would not let
me answer it afterwards.

[_The remainder of this letter is missing._]