Your dilemma is this: by such an arrangement you either succeed in convening an European Congress, which will deliberate upon the present _abnormal_ and disturbed condition of central Italy, or the failure will at least be glorious. In the first case, therefore, you only rest upon a hope, and a hope that is evaporating daily, since France at heart does not _so far_ wish for the Congress, and I do not see who is to force it on her. I must say that Lord John Russell’s noble declaration to the effect that England does not intend to take part in any Congress, unless the bases of peace and rearrangement of Italy are different from those defined in the preliminaries at Villafranca, so that room may be left for discussion, does great honour to his high political capacity; but his declaration does not in the smallest degree further the possibility of this European Congress, particularly if it be borne in mind that those preliminaries are now being reduced at Zurich, to a definitive peace upon still more onerous conditions, and with the intervention of Sardinia. The first part of the dilemma being disposed of, the second remains. I fully agree that in fighting manfully the fall will be glorious, but this glory will belong solely to the combatants, and will redound to the perpetual ignominy of Piedmont, which is condemned by some of its antecedents, and is perhaps obliged by dire necessity to remain a quiet though armed spectator of the struggle. The same Piedmont that has nevertheless assumed the magnanimous task of the redemption of Italy: that Piedmont which is the only State possessing the backbone of national strength; that Piedmont which contains in itself the fortunes of the Italy of the future, and to which we must all at least give our moral support, so that it may not utterly lose its reputation by too openly showing either its present impotence or the paltriness of its policy of partial aggrandizement—a policy which is, perhaps, a supreme necessity of the novel _situation_ wherein an imprudent peace has placed it. But let us see whether there is not a third hypothesis besides these two, and perhaps something even more probable, because I consider it certain that Central Italy cannot _all_ be annexed to Piedmont, and likewise certain that France will not consent to the forcible restorations. I maintain, in fact, that there will be no restorations at all, and my opinion is not shaken either by Reiset’s journey or by the mission of Poniatowski, nor even by the reception of one of the fugitive Princes at the Tuileries. I hold that the Emperor will permit the convocation of the Assembly devised by you, exactly as he has allowed the gathering of the local Assemblies and the record of their votes in favour of Piedmont.