The Sun.
London, England, 1859-07-21 00:00:00

pital ; but, if the strong and evident impressions of
the Austrian Emperor are worth anything, France
has been actually assisted by the neutrality of the
other Powers.

But what is to be thought of a sanguinary war
which has not only been brought to a sudden end
by the foreseen and persevering neutrality of the
rest of Europe, but which, on the face of the Im-
perial explanations, has not done half what might
have been done by the mediation of the neutral
Powers ? On the showing of Napoleon 111., war,
though waged with perfect means, perfect skill,
and complete success, could only do half the work.
There was a point as fixed and prominent in his
course as the ship at anchor or the perpendicular
rock beyond which it was utterly impossible to
push the attempt to liberate Italy by the force of
arms. The neutral Powers, it is clearly the belief
of Francis Joseph, were prepared to mediate much
beyond this point. Their mediation, then, would
have proved a better friend to Italy than the sword
of France. Yet, since the two Emperors chose to
take the matter into their own hands, to refuse me-
diation, and appeal to the sword, the neutrality of
the other Powers has done what good it could do
under the circumstances in staying a fearful car-
nage, in giving Lombardy an Italian master, in
retaining to Austria her less reluctant subjects east
of the Mincio, in bringing her to admit Italian
nationality, and leading all the Sovereigns of
the Peninsula to comprehend, it is hoped, " the
imperious want of salutary reforms." This is
the result for which so much blood has been
shed, and both Emperors agree in ascribing all
the result, such as there is, to the armed neu-
trality of the other great Powers. We may
have our own opinions as to the value of the
result. When the admission of Italian nationality
by one Imperial mind is thought worth the death
or mutilation of a hundred thousand soldiers, we
ask when is this never-ending, still-beginning
scheme, to be accomplished one way or another?
Well, indeed, may we exclaim once more, for the
thousandth time, " Tanta) molis erit Romanam con-
dere gentem !" But be the present achievement
great or small, substantial or fantastical, it is con-
fessed to be due to the virtual mediation of the
neutral Powers ; but for which Napoleon 111. might
by this time have found his army melting and
mouldering before the walls of the four great for-
tresses, or, with worse ills in store, advancing be-
tween Italians and Hungarians to the Austrian
capital.

(Fr9nt the Daily .2trews.)
The apologetic tone of the Emperor Napoleon's
address to the Legislative Body, on his return from
Italy, betrays how sensible he has already become
of the light in which his proceedings at Villafranca
are everywhere regarded. There was much differ-
ence of opinion in France and throughout Europe
respecting the policy of the war ; there is none as
to its abrupt and sinister termination. It is hard
to say whether those who believed in the foresight
and sincerity of the self-appointed liberator of
Italy, or those who harboured misgivings as to his
real purpose in crossing the Alps, find most fault
with the precipitate and inconclusive peace fur-
tively signed at Villafranca. The mercenary friends
of tranquillity at any price look with dismay upon
fifty millions squandered in vain in as many days
on the battle-field, while the genuine friends of
humanity lament the effusion of so much blood
without the attainment of any more merciful result
than a prorogation of further carnage to a day not
named, but which cannot be very far distant.
France, whose pride of territorial acquisition was
lulled to sleep by promises of moral glory and heroic
fame, hears with chagrin her Sovereign, on the day
of his return from the theatre of war, volunteering
excuses for the failure of the promises with which
he set out two short months ago, and depre-
cating the imputation that his " efforts and
sacrifices had been merely losses." No attempt is
made to conceal the disappointing truth that the
victor of Solferino recoiled before the serried
strength of the Austrians encamped beneath the
walls of Verona ; as if the certainty of having to
combat them in that position had never been
thought of before. Some vague phrases are thrown
in about unexpectedly finding " Europe in arms to
baffle success or render defeat more ruinous ;"
though, strange to say, the equally low-toned
apology of the Emperor Francis Joseph for having
agreed to the peace rests chiefly upon the fact that
not even his federal allies (to say nothing of Russia
or England) would draw a swordto aid him. Which
of their Imperial Majesties give the true version of
the matter we need no testimony to prove. Europe
beheld indeed with deepening interest the progress
of the struggle in North ern Italy, and more than
one of the leading Powers was willing honourably
and publicly to offer its mediation with the view
professedly of securing to a considerable portion of
the Peninsula, if not to the whole, the blessings of
independent and native rule. What the precise
terms might have been which would have been thus
offered we need not here discuss ; whatever they
were likely to be in the opinion of Napoleon 111.,
they could not have been worse than those which
he has himself sought to impose ; if they were we
should not be long in learning them. The spirit of
resentment breathes unmistakeably through every
sentence of the speech delivered on Tuesday even-
ing at St. Cloud ;. but not a hint is dropped that
Italy is better off under the pacification of Villa-
franca than it would have been had her cause been
frankly committed to the arbitrament of the three
great disinterested powers of Northern and non-
Catholic Europe. A single phrase is devoted ac-
cording to custom to the expression of hopes for the
tranquillity of Christendom ; but in every Cabinet,
and on every Bourse, the universal conviction is,
that the attempt, unprecedented save at Tilsit, to
conclude peace without consulting allies, and to dis-
pose of sovereignties and peoples without the pre-
tence or show of asking the consent of either, is
certain to prove a source of new and deep disquie-
tude both far and near.

Every sentence spoken by the French Emperor
to his wondering auaitory at St. Cloud is a con-
fession that he meant the clandestine armistice and
subsequent bargaining at Villafranca to be a grand
coup ; and that he is now painfully conscious it
has proved a coup manque. It will be in vain to
ask the Courts and Cabinets whom he has treated
with such rash disregard, to become endorsers of
his repudiated draft on the patience of mankind.
As they declined to take either side in the san-
gbinary conflict, they would have had no right to
complain of their not having been consulted for-
mally in the negotiations for its cessation. But
the re-arrangement and re-distribution of states
and populations cannot be a matter of indifference
to the other Powers of Europe ; and if it be true
that at the very moment when the two unattended
despots were affecting to deal in this Oriental
fashion with the inhabitants of Northern and Cen-
tral Italy, the envoys of Napoleon 111. were assi-
duously urging other Powers to interpose their
good offices and counsels, it cannot be deemed
strange if the latter should now inexorably refuse
to enter into any conference or congress of which
the basis is to be the recognition, direct or indirect,
of an act flagrautly at variance with every prin-
ciple of international good faith, civilisation, and
law. Had it been a mere question of exigency in
point of time, and that, to save the waste of human
life which a third great battle would have caused,
proposals had been interchanged, conditional on the
acceptance of the Italians, or the confirmation of a
European congress ; and had the propositions when
disclosed been such as to divide opinion as to
their probable effects upon Italian freedom or con-
tinental peace, the case would have been far diffe-
rent. But not a shred of palliation of either
kind is perceptible in any quarter. Italy has
received the tidings of the fate intended her
by her now conjoined oppressors with a unani-
mous groan of consternation and disgust ; insurgent
Florence can hardly be restrained within bounds at
the threat of being flung back to the hereditary
viceroys of Austria ; Milan half forgets her own
escape from thraldom in her grief for Venice
betrayed ; and even the Pope and the King of
Naples are said to spurn the unwelcome parts as-
signed them by their united patrons. No wonder
that every foreign journal which dares to tell the
truth is rigorously excluded from circulation in
France, while the newspapers of Paris are sternly
interdicted from discussing the fearful blunder into
which Imperial arrogance has fallen. In despotic
systems blunders are more feared than crimes.
What when they are both ?

(From the Morning Post.)

In the answer of the Emperor Napoleon to the
addresses presented to him by the great bodies-of
State on Tuesday evening we may reasonably look
for an exposition of the motives which induced his
Majesty so hastily to conclude the peace of Villa-
franca. That transaction has so startled Europe by
its.suddeuness, and disappointed every one by its
incompleteness, that we listen with no light anxiety
to whatever may be urged in its justification: The
Emperor puts his case with his usual felicity of
expression, and leaves us in no doubt as to the dif-
ficulties which beset him in commencing the second
half of the campaign. From the Alps to the
Mineio was a continual march of success ; but
from the Mincio to the Adriatic threatened to be
less easy. Austria for years had made the quadri-
lateral the key of her position. The time had
come when it would be seen whether it were
proof against the most powerful army in Europe.
" Arrived at Verona," the Emperor found that the
strength predicated of that place was not ex-
aggerated. Up to that time the considerations
involved in the prosecution of the war had
been purely military. But, in the face of the
quadrilateral, political combinations began to ap-
pear, and gave check to the Conqueror in a way