Peace, of course, is always the ostensible object of alliances of the kind. It is very seldom their real object; and it was not in this case. Victor Emmanuel desired as little as Napoleon to limit it in that way. What was at the back of Victor Emmanuel’s mind appears from his negotiations with Francis Joseph—negotiations which he entrusted to General Türr, a Hungarian officer in the Italian service. General Türr is one of those who have been indiscreet. He eventually told the correspondent of a German newspaper what had passed between him and Francis Joseph, and how, after reviewing the subject in its general aspects, he went into details from the Italian point of view, and raised the inevitable question of Italia Irredenta:— “I mentioned the Trentino to Francis Joseph, and he interrupted me. “‘Ah!’ he objected, ‘it is always I who am expected to give something up.’ “‘Naturally,’ I replied. ‘But it is also clearly understood that your Majesty will obtain compensation for the surrender in some other quarter.’” It was a proposal by which Francis Joseph might very well have been tempted, especially as he had not yet realised that the future of Austria was in the Balkans. We have already seen him hinting that he might be able to give up Venetia if he could obtain “an extension of the Empire in the direction of Germany”; and the same bribe might very well have induced him to part with the Trentino. Of course, too, the memory of Sadowa rankled; and, with the French and the Italians for his allies, he could hardly fail to avenge that humiliation. The chance of thus playing off his various enemies against each other was not one to be scoffed at. He did not scoff at it, but the three-cornered bargain was too intricate to be settled in a hurry. In particular, Victor Emmanuel was in no hurry, but was hanging back in order to make conditions with France as well as with Austria. With him, the position of the Pope was the obstacle. He wanted the Pope’s temporal dominions in order that he might fix his capital at Rome; and the Pope was protected in those temporal dominions by French bayonets. Victor Emmanuel, therefore, stipulated that the French troops should be withdrawn from Rome. Napoleon himself was willing enough to withdraw them, but the Clericals, with the Empress Eugénie at their head, objected. He was afraid of the Clericals; and so the negotiations hung fire. When he did recall his troops, because he wanted them in the field, it was too late. Victor Emmanuel had heard the news of the French defeat at Wörth, and he uttered the memorable words:— “The poor Emperor! I am very sorry for him; but I have had a narrow escape.” Even so, however, Victor Emmanuel would have signed the proposed treaty if his Ministers would have let him, as he told the German Emperor frankly when he met him in 1873:—