At the same time, it is only fair to say that the conduct of Napoleon at the time was singularly indiscreet. He made it plain that he was about to annex Nice and Savoy, although when he went to war in Italy he had protested that he did not seek for extension of territory. The Central Italian States, however, by voting through their assemblies in favour of annexation to Sardinia, furnished the French Emperor with an excuse for annexations, which were only necessary to recompense France for her expenditure of blood and treasure in the war with Austria. It was obvious that a great Italian kingdom would now be created in North Italy, and the Emperor held that he could not leave in its hands the passes by which France might be invaded. To secure his Alpine frontier, then, the Emperor insisted on taking Savoy and Nice. The provoking matter was this: the suggestion that the Central States should by a new vote in their Assemblies declare their intentions as to their future came from England. “We are asked,” wrote the Queen, in a sharp letter to Lord John Russell, “to make proposals about Italy, ‘to lay the basis for a mutual agreement with France, upon that question, and to enable the Emperor to release himself from his engagements with Austria.’ In an evil hour the proposal is made, and is now pleaded as the reason for France seizing on Savoy.... Sardinia is being aggrandised at the expense of Austria and the House of Lorraine, and France is to be compensated. If the passes of the Alps are dangerous to a neighbour, the weaker power must give them up to the stronger!”[63] The Queen, in fact, feared that on the same pretext the French Emperor might be led to demand a rectification of his Rhenish frontier, a demand which she knew must lead straight to a disastrous European war. A discussion raised by Lord Normanby in the House of Lords on the 7th of February stirred up the forces of public opinion against France. As for Cavour, he was helpless. The consent of France to the enlargement of Sardinia could not be bought save by the cession of Nice and Savoy, and so they were ceded to France, despite Cavour’s reluctance, on the 24th of March.