But after the lion had roared loud enough to wake the echoes of the Tuileries, Lord Clarendon was sent to Paris on a private diplomatic mission. His object was to induce the Emperor Napoleon to support Lord Palmerston’s proposal for a Conference of the Powers on the Sleswig-Holstein Question, a scheme which France as yet did not sanction. It must be allowed that if the German Powers scoffed at the attempt to frighten them by a Cockney demonstration in favour of Garibaldi, Lord Palmerston and his envoy seem to have made it serve their turn in Paris. Napoleon III. agreed at last to support the Palmerston-Russell scheme of a Conference, provided Palmerston would send Garibaldi out of England as quickly as possible. This was an embarrassing condition to fulfil, as the guerilla chief was becoming far too popular to be treated in such an unceremonious fashion. He had entered into an engagement to proceed to Manchester, and from thence on a provincial tour of agitation, which greatly disquieted Napoleon III., and which must therefore be stopped. The end of the farce may be told in Lord Malmesbury’s words. In his Diary on the 20th of April he writes:--“Garibaldi leaves England on Friday.... Certainly there must be some intrigue, as Mr. Ferguson, the surgeon, writes a letter to the Duke of Sutherland--which is published--saying it would be dangerous for Garibaldi’s health if he exposed himself to the fatigue of an expedition to Manchester, &c. &c. On the other hand, Dr. Basile, Garibaldi’s own doctor, says he is perfectly well, and able to undergo all the fatigue of a journey to the manufacturing towns.”[199] This communication from Dr. Basile was published, because Garibaldi was naturally angry at having been overreached by Palmerston and the Whig aristocracy, who sacrificed him whenever he was of no more use to them as a piece on the political chessboard. What made matters worse was that Garibaldi felt certain that, if he had been allowed but one week for agitation in the provinces, he would have stirred up so much popular feeling that he could have defied Lord Palmerston to order him home.