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!