Villa Alberti, Siena: September [1859].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--As you talk of palpitations and the newspapers,
and then tell me or imply that you are confined for light and air to the
'Times' on the Italian question, I am moved with sympathy and compassion
for you, and anxious not to lose a post in answering your letter. My
dear, dear friends, I beseech you to believe _nothing_ which you have
read, are reading, or are likely to read in the 'Times' newspaper,
unless it contradicts all that went before. The criminal conduct of that
paper from first to last, and the immense amount of injury it has
occasioned in the world, make me feel that the hanging of the Smethursts
and Ellen Butlers would be irredeemable cruelty while these writers are
protected by the Law....

Of course you must feel perplexed. The paper takes up different sets of
falsities, quite different and contradictory, and treats them as facts,
and writes 'leaders' on them, as if they were facts. The reader, at
last, falls into a state of confusion, and sees nothing clearly except
that somehow or other, for something that he has done or hasn't done,
has intended or hasn't intended, Louis Napoleon is a rascal, and we
ought to hate him and his.

Well, leave the 'Times'--though from the 'Times' and the like base human
movements in England and Germany resulted, more or less directly, that
peace of Villafranca which threw us all here into so deep an anguish,
that I, for one, have scarcely recovered from it even to this day.

Let me tell you. We were living in a glow of triumph and gratitude; and
for me, it seemed to me as if I walked among the angels of a new-created
world. All faces at Florence shone with one thought and one love. You
can scarcely realise to yourself what it was at that time. Friends were
more than friends, and strangers were friends. The rapture of the
Italians--their gratitude to the French, the simple joy with which the
French troops understood (down to the privates) that they had come to
deliver their brothers, and to go away with empty hands; all these
things, which have been calumniated and denied, were wonderfully
beautiful. Scarcely ever in my life was I so happy. I was happy, not
only for Italy, but for the world--because I thought that this great
deed would beat under its feet all enmities, and lift up England itself
(at last) above its selfish and base policy. Then, on a sudden, came the
peace. It was as if a thunderbolt fell. For one day, every picture and
bust of the Emperor vanished, and the men who would have died for him,
before that sun, half articulated a curse on his head. But the next day
we were no longer mad, and as the days past, we took up hope again, and
the more thoughtful among our politicians began to understand the
situation. There was, however, a painful change. Before, difference of
opinion was unknown, and there was no sort of anxiety (a doubt of the
result of the war never crossing anyone's mind). Napoleon in the
thickest of the fire, with one epaulette shot off, was a symbol
intelligible to the whole population. But when he disappeared from the
field and entered the region of spirits and diplomats--when he walked
under the earth instead of on the surface--though he walked with equal
loyalty and uprightness, then people were sanguine or fearful according
to their temperament, and the English and Austrian newspapers,
attributing the worst motives and designs, troubled the thoughts of
many. Still, both the masses (with their blind noble faith), and the
leaders with their intelligence, held fast their hopes, and the
consequence has been the magnificent spectacle which this nation now
offers to Europe, and which for dignity, calm, and unanimous
determination may seek in vain for its parallel in history. Now we are
very happy again, full of hope and faith....

We shall probably go to Rome again for the winter, as Florence is
considered too cold. There will be disturbances that way in all
probability; but we are bold as to such things. The Pope is hard to
manage, even for the Emperor. It is hard to cut up a feather bed into
sandwiches with the finest Damascus blade, but the end will be attained
somehow. I wish I could see clearly about Venetia. There are intelligent
and thoughtful Italians who are hopeful even for Venetia, and certainly,
the Emperor of Austria's offer to Tuscany (not made to the Assembly, as
the 'Times' said, but murmured about by certain agents) implies a
consciousness on his part of holding Venetia, with a broken _wrist_ at
least.

As to the Duchies never for a moment did I believe in armed
intervention. Napoleon distinctly with his own lips promised our
delegates, after the peace, and before he left Italy, that he would
neither do it nor permit it. And afterwards, in Paris, again and again.
He accepted the Austrian proposition under the condition simply that
the Dukes were recalled by the people, not in defiance of the popular
will. He has been loyal throughout both to Austria and to Italy, and to
his own original programme, which did not contemplate dispossessing
sovereigns but freeing peoples.

Italy for the Italians--and so it will be. For Prince Napoleon, when he
was in Florence he might have remained there and delighted everybody. I
_know_ even that a person high in office felt the way towards a proposal
of the kind, and that he answered in a manner considered too
'_tranchant_,' 'No, no, _that_ would suit neither the Emperor nor
England; et pour moi, je ne le voudrais pas.' He used every opportunity
at that time of advising the fusion, about which people were much less
unanimous than they are now.

But calumny never dies (_like me_!). Mr. Russell, Lord John's nephew,
the quasi-minister at Rome, very acute, and liberal too (by the English
standard) being on his road to Rome from London last week proposed
paying us a visit, and we had him here two days (in a valuable spare
room!). He told me that Napoleon had been too _fin_ for the English
Government. He had _induced them to acknowledge the Tuscan
vote_--(observe that fact, dearest friends) induced them to acknowledge
the Tuscan vote; and now here was his game. He had forbidden Piedmont to
accept the fusion,[66] and therefore Piedmont must refuse. The
consequence of which would be that there must be another vote in
Tuscany, which would favor Prince Napoleon, and that we, having accepted
the first vote, must accept the second, the Emperor throwing up his
hands and crying, '_Who would have thought it?_'

We told him that he and the English Government were so far out in their
conclusions, that Piedmont, instead of refusing, would accept
conditionally; but he sighed, 'hoped it might be so,' in the way in
which preposterous opinions are civilly put away.

Scarcely was he gone, when the conditional acceptance was known.

How much more I could tell you. But one can't write all. The first
battle in the north of Italy freed Italy _potentially_ from north to
south. Our political life here in the centre is a proof of this. The
conduct of the Italians is admirable, but last year they _could not_
have assumed this attitude. They were a bound people. And even now, if
the Emperor removed his hand from Austria, we should have the foreign
intervention, and no hope.

We are ready and willing to fight, observe. The 'Times' may take back
its words. But to oppose the whole Austrian Empire with our unorganised,
however heroic, forces, is impossible. We might _die_, indeed....

May God bless both of you always! I have pretty good letters from home.
Home! what's home?

Your ever affectionate and grateful
BA.

Read 'La Foi des Traites'; it is from the hand of Louis Napoleon. So
that I was prepared for the amnesty and for what follows.

      * * * * *


The following letters to Mr. Chorley relate to Mrs. Browning's poem 'A
Tale of Villafranca,' which was published in the 'Athenaeum' for
September 24, and subsequently included in the volume of 'oems before
Congress' (_Poetical Works_, iv. 195).