The Sun.
London, England, 1859-11-12 00:00:00

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Every twenty-four hours produce some new phase
of this shifty Italian question. The scudding clouds
that drift before these gusty winds do not change
their forms so quickly as,
do the counsels, or at least
the acts, of the French Government. The Great
Prospero, with Austria and Italy crouched before
him, compels both his Caliban and his Ariel to
fitful and unwilling service. Yesterday we spcen-
, lated on the happy effects to arise from the new
announcement that moral suasion was henceforth to
be the only pressure brought to bear on Italy, To-
, day we are told that even while we were writing
under the influence of that intelligence Victor Em-
manuel was under the influence of " a very urgent
representation received from the French Govern-
molt." The King of Piedmont has, in obedience
to this Imperial command, been compelled to re-
fuse the services of his cousin to the prayers of
Central Italy. The Prince of Carignan remains in
Turin, and Central Italy is still without a Govern-
ment. It seems veyy cruel. Italy is in a position
in which no populations can long continue. Thomas
Aquinas may discuss with a deliberate ingenuity
how many angels can balance themselves upon the
point of a needle, but men of human feelings can-
not watch without painful interest while the ex-
periment is being tried how long human society
can hold together by mere voluntary cohesion
without the usual bands of government. No doubt,
there were some means whereby the schoolman
could arrive .at an opinion as to the exact number
of angels which could maintain their footing, and
probably our contemporary casuist has calculated
the exact moment when the attraction of gravitation
will become greater than the attraction of cohesion,
and when Italian society will tumble into chaos.
The poor Italians themselves foresee, or, at any
rate, fear this. The King whom they look to with
so much hope, and whom they celebrate as "the
first soldier of Italy," also fears it. All Europe,
well wishers to the Italians, fear it. Tho powers
of darkness, tyrants and their instruments, ultra-
montane priests and the Papal cabal, all look for it
impatiently. It was and is a crisis distressing to
every friend of order and lover of liberty. Them
is uo escape from it but by the formation of a strong
Government. Unanimously the populations call
upon a Prince of their own race to come and pro-
tect them from themselves; to govern them until
they can tell how far the other nations of Europe will
allow them to choose a permanent ruler. It seems
a.moderate and a wise request; but it is not good
for them to have it granted. There is an earthly
providence which knows better what is good for
Italy than Italy knows herself, and which, having
aided her to fight for her right of free will, continues
his protecting kindeess by insisting on teaching her
how that free will must be exercised. Free will
reigns in Central Italy, but there is a Destiny in
Paris.

What is " a very urgent representation ?" We
must have a new dictionary of the French language.
The old idioms are losing their meaning, and new
ones are arising that cannot be interpreted. This
very urgent representation" that has come upon
Victor Emmanuel must be something much more
terrible than any representation could be which
was not illustrated by the gleam of some hundred
thousand bayonets. It is not, surely, mere words
which have induced this brave soldier, this hot-,
blooded and not very cool-headed Italian, to re-
fuse to his friends in Italy a man to act in his
name to repress disorder. We have often heard
quoted the lament of the old Italian poet
over the hard fate of those who have to pass
up and down other men's stairs ; but this
is nothing to the misery of being compelled power-
lessly to enact on his own reeponsibility another
man's policy. To sit under the shadow of another
man's power, to accept an heroic character, and to
have great-and honest aspirations; but to be obliged
to act as prompted by a master from behind, and to
be conscious of being an instrument of intrigues for
ruining a sacred and beloved cause—this is worse
than penury, worse than the dependence which
may be suffered in secret. It is hard to be endured,
and it is tyranny to inflict it. True, Victor Ern-
marmeLis now only experiencing what all have felt
who have believed that liberty was to be obtained
by foreign arms. He has had his revenge upon
his foreign enemy, and he has become the shadow
of his foreign ally. But Victor Emmanuel has
deserved to be treated with some tenderness and
delicacy; he made a good fight in that Italian
campaign, and he is a corporal of Zouaves by
election. If it be a necessity that either he or
Napoleon must eat dirt; in obedience to that Villa-
franca convention, the Emperor should recollect
that it was he who promised, and the King who at
the time protested: But What can have been the
nature of this " very urgent representation " to
have such.effect upon such a man ? If it was not
accompanied by a threat of arms, or at least a
threat to unleash Austria upon her old prey, it
will scarcely be recognised by Europe as a suffi-
cient excuse for such a cold answer to the zeal of
Italy. If, on the contrary, this representation was
presented at Turin by an armed hand, Europe
ouLcht to know it. French diplomacy carries [a bag
which we never seem to have got at the bottom
of. M. Houdin himself does not produce more
strange and startling articles out of his sack after
he has shaken it and turned it inside out than
does our powerful and astute ally. After the
French Budget was apparently quite exhausted,
Austria must have been somewhat startled to see
Peschiera and Mantua tumble out as federal for-
tresses; and when the Grand Dukes had come out
in good preservation they must have been somewhat
disappointed to see that condition against armed
intervention shaken out of the bag. Even the official
defence of the treaty of Zurich, of which we pub-
lish a translation elsewhere, adds another to the
many magic changes of the diplomatic conjuring
properties. We are therein told by Count
Walewski that the rights of the Grand Dukes
of Tuscany, Modena, and Parma were reserved
only because territorial limits could not be
changed without the consent of the parties to
the Treaty of Vienna. But scarcely has this been
said when in a later paragraph Modena and
Parma are cast away, and we are told that the
Government of the Emperor seeks the conditions
of the pacification of the Duchies in an arrange-
ment based upon the return of the Grand Duke of
Tuscany. Is there anything more in that myste-
rious and never-exhausted sack?—anything which
causes even Victor Emmanuel to tremble ?

It is very *ell to sit and see bouquets and birds
and scentbottles come out of a conjuror's bag, but
this a conjuror who tosses about the destinies of the
world. He has under his hand at this moment half-
a-dozen riots, leading to the pillage of half-a-dozen
Italian cities. He can bring them forth when he
likes ; he has only to will, and the demons of disorder
will fly abroad as busy as imps in a pantomime. It
is quite within his power to burn down Florence, or
to get up a civil battle in the streets of Bologna. This
requires no armed intervention. It requires nothing
but a series of " very urgent representations" in-
terposed upon every attempt to establish a regular
and permanent system of government. We are
far from thinking that the French Emperor is
not as anxious as the rest of mankind for the
peace and tranquillity of the country he has taken
under his patronage ; but he appears to us to un-
dertake a very serious responsibility when he in-
terferes so imperiously as he has just done to pre-
vent Italy. from emerging from the disorganised
condition in which she now necessarily is. It may
be a very subtle and a very clever policy, but it is
dangerous. To drive the Italians in despair to
his own expedient he forbitis them every other.
He has stopped all the holes except one bolt-
hole, and has put a net over that; or, like
a patient and determined groom with an ob-
stinate horse, he tickles and twitches and perse-
cutes. the animal, giving him no rest or sleep
until he is tired out and submits. These are
plans that answer to catch rabbits and to tame
horses, but whether any similar course of proceed-
ing will answer to catch Tuscany and Modena, and
to tame the Romagna, may not be so certain. If
diplomatic words have meaning to common ears,
Napoleon 111. cannot, come what may, march an
army into Italy unless to drive out an Austrian
army. Is it not to be feared that Italy, headed and.
traversed in all her endeavours, may despair of meet-
ing the wishes of foreigners, and, fearing no longer
that Frenchmen or Austrians may come upon her
through the passages of the Alps, may look only to
the best means of consolidating her own internal
strength? If Napoleon 111, will not let her have
Victor Emmanuel or the Prince of Carignan, it is
not quite a certainty that she will be fatigued into
an assent to the return of the Austoian Grand
Dukes. She may possibly at last bethink her whe-
ther she has no man of the Washington stamp
among her 13011 g, and she may turn her ayes upon
Garibaldi.

GENERAL REED.—The following paper is an ex-
tract of a letter from the Secretary of the Government of
India to the Adjutant-General of the army, dated Allaha-
bad, Nov. 17, 1858 :—" I am directed to acquaint you, for
the information of his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief
that the Governor-General is of opinion that the military
arrangements made by Major-General Reed, in the
Punjab, in concert with the civil authorities, during the
early period of the mutinies in the Northhic western
the ffi-
Pro-
vinces in 1857, well-merited the approbation h o
cers received at the time from the late
fied Commanrom the
der-in-
' Chief ; and that his lordship is full
of M ajy. satis that, f
sth of July,when the decease or-General Sir H. Bar-
nard took place, to the 17th of that month, when ill-health
obliged Major-Ocneral Reed to quit the camp before Delhi,
that officer, in assuming the command of the besieging force
and in directing its operations, performed a service which
deserves the acknowledgments of Government,"

.S PAP E R

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FRANCE AND I --- - 4
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