My rejoinder was that if the matter stood as thus reported to me, I could not but confess that the King’s Government was involved in the responsibility, but that I was unable to comprehend why such a King should be patronized as he of Gaeta, sprung of a generation of ruthless tyrants; that we should never have expected to see the wings of the Imperial eagle extended over the lawless people of Naples, red with human blood, and that we were completely at sea. I said too, that the most influential persons here believed the Emperor was favourable to a certain measure of Italian independence, but not to Italian unity; and to this is attributed the protection accorded to the King of Gaeta; that it was held for certain too that H.M. would go to war next spring, but not for the unity of Italy. I ought perhaps to have said more, but did not wish to go beyond certain limits. There are some here who think that the Emperor has an understanding with you over there to go to war next spring, but I do not know what good it would do us to have Francis at Gaeta. In short we understand nothing at all. Yours, &c., &c., A. PANIZZI.” “P.S.—Please tell Hudson what I am writing. I have let Palmerston and Gladstone read the answer which I got from Paris: they have both formed the same opinion of it.” What schemes and intentions the Emperor may have secretly entertained at this period (if, indeed, such a creature of circumstances can be supposed to have been capable of possessing fixed intentions beyond the exigencies of the hour) will probably remain hidden from human ken until records now in obscure recesses shall come out into the light of publicity. That ambitious ideas floated through his brain, and that, if it had been possible to carry out his projects, he would have hesitated but little about the means of executing them, there is little doubt; but that, for some reason, he did not see the way to their fulfilment seems equally certain. Happily—and probably owing to the firm attitude of England—the cloud passed over, and no rupture occurred between the two great powers. In a little more than two years after the date of the letter last quoted, Panizzi received from the Emperor a second invitation to Biarritz. What led to this invitation we find him thus explaining to his friend Ellice:— “Paris, 52, Rue de Lille, “Monday, Aug. 11th, 1862.