Russia hinted at armed intervention for the protection of the Neapolitan Bourbons. France, in a paroxysm of virtue, deprecated any extension of Sardinian territory. England implored Sardinia to take no hand in, and lend no countenance to, the revolution in the Sicilies, lest France should demand more compensations in Genoa and the Island of Sardinia itself. When Lord John Russell pressed this view on the Cabinet of Turin he was probably ignorant of the fact that Cavour, when he signed the compact ceding Savoy to France, said, bitterly, “Et maintenant vous voilà nos complices!” (“Now you are an accomplice”). France had, in fact, been paid in full for her neutrality; and though Cavour issued a platonic protest against the conquest of the Sicilies in May, it was obvious that Victor Emmanuel would never risk his Crown by actively impeding in any part of Italy the movement for national independence. The Court of Naples at this crisis seemed paralysed with panic. In August Garibaldi advanced virtually unopposed, and captured the capital, the King, with 50,000 troops, retreating to Capua and Gaëta.[66] Italy, said Mr. Disraeli, in one of the debates in Parliament, “was in a state far beyond the management of, and settlement of Courts and Cabinets,” and whilst diplomatists were debating how she could be kept in bondage, she had freed half of her territory by one daring but decisive stroke. Flushed with his easy victory, Garibaldi now declared he would hold South Italy till the whole peninsula was free--till Austria was expelled from the north-east, and the eagles of France were chased from the pinnacles of the capital. This declaration forced the hands of France and Sardinia. Cavour and Napoleon agreed that intervention in the Papal States and in Naples could not be postponed.[67] Victor Emmanuel, therefore, summoned the Pope to dismiss the foreign levies he had organised for the purpose of forcing his revolted subjects to return to their allegiance. His Holiness refused, and then Cialdini and Fanti overran Umbria and the Marches, crushed the Papal army, and forced Lamoriciere to surrender the fortress of Ancona. Carefully avoiding a collision with Austria and with the French army of occupation in Rome--a condition attached to the neutrality of Napoleon III.--the Piedmontese troops marched on to complete the conquest of the Sicilies, where the King still held out at Gaëta and Capua. When this had been effected the kingdoms, by a popular vote, decided on annexation to Sardinia, and Europe acquiesced in the interests of law, order, and monarchical institutions. Garibaldi, on handing over the Sicilies to Victor Emmanuel, retired to Caprera, refusing all reward or recompense for his splendid services to his country, and appealing to Italy to be ready to renew the struggle for freedom in Venetia next year. But the prevailing feeling was that a final settlement of the Italian Question had not yet been arrived at, and would never be arrived at whilst