One person had already received from his lips the same declaration, with another of wider meaning. During the previous night, speaking to the Lombard officer above mentioned, the King said: 'I shall preserve intact the institutions given by my father; I shall uphold the tricolor flag, symbol of Italian nationality, which is vanquished to-day, but which one day will triumph. This triumph will be, henceforth, the aim of all my efforts.' In 1874, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Novara, Count Vimercati wrote to the King of Italy from Paris to remind him of the words he had then spoken.
When the King started for his capital, Radetsky offered to draw up his troops as a guard of honour over the whole extent of occupied territory between Novara and Turin. The offer was declined, and Victor Emmanuel took a circuitous route to avoid observation. His journey was marked throughout by a complete absence of state. Before he arrived, a trusty hand consigned to him a note written in haste and in much anguish by the Queen, in which she warned him to enter by night, as he was likely to have a very bad reception. On the 27th of March he reviewed the National Guard in the Piazza Castello on the occasion of its taking the oath of allegiance. The ceremony was attended by Queen Maria Adelaide in a carriage with her two little boys, the Princes Umberto and Amedeo. There was no hostile demonstration, but there was a most general and icy coldness.
That evening, the terms of the armistice were communicated to the Chamber. As was natural, they evoked the wildest indignation, a part of which fell undeservedly on the King. Twenty thousand Austrians were to occupy the district between the Po, Sesia and Ticino and half the citadel of Alessandria. The excitement rose to its height when it was announced that the Sardinian Fleet must be recalled from Venetian waters, depriving that struggling city of the last visible sign of support from without. The Chamber sent a deputation to the King, who succeeded in persuading its members that, hard though the terms were, there was no avoiding their acceptance, and that the original stipulations were harder still.
On the 29th, Victor Emmanuel took the oath to observe the Statute, to exercise the royal authority only in virtue of the laws, to cause justice to be fairly and fearlessly administered, and to conduct himself in all things with the sole view to the interest, honour and prosperity of the nation.