Not long after Prince Napoleon came the Foreign Minister, M. de Moustier, with his story.
M. de Moustier says that the reports he receives from Berlin and other quarters confirm his impression that Prussia is averse to a war with France; that the relations between Austria and Prussia are improving, and that such being the case Prussia is awakening to a sense of the danger of Russian designs in Eastern Europe. On the other hand he says that Baron Brunnow gives the most positive assurances that Russia will do nothing against Turkey. He trusts that these assurances may be depended upon, but he thinks that the Russian Government uses its ambassadors as screens, behind which to carry on its own manoeuvres.
Nigra, the Italian Minister here, tells me that his last news from Florence gives him strong hopes that the Menabrea Ministry will maintain itself. I presume that the object of Italy should be to convince the Emperor that Rome will be safe without the French troops--I mean to make the Emperor himself really confident of it. This done, I suppose diplomacy is capable of devising some formal guarantees to satisfy the French public. I do not believe that France has as yet done more than hinted at some security that Italy will take her side, if she quarrels with Prussia. I do not know that she has even hinted at anything of the kind. A demand for an engagement of this sort would be unreasonable and probably futile. If France is ever hard pressed by Prussia, the Italians will go to Rome unless some other Powers step forward to bar the way. At all events, it will not be by promises extracted beforehand that they will be stopped.
The real danger to Europe appears however to be in the difficulties of the Emperor Napoleon at home. The discontent is great and the distress amongst the working classes severe. The great measure of the session, the new Conscription Act, is very unpopular. There is no glitter at home or abroad to divert public attention, and the French have been a good many years without the excitement of a change. I think that Europe, and England in particular, are more interested in maintaining the Emperor, than in almost anything else.
The accuracy of this forecast, like that of Mr. Odo Russell, was also demonstrated in 1870, when, upon the retirement of the French garrison, the Italian troops marched into Rome, and the temporal power of the Pope came to an end. It is not, however, altogether fair to place the whole responsibility for the collapse of French policy in Italy upon Napoleon III., for whereas he was no doubt personally in favour of an united Italy; there was a strong party in France which was strongly opposed to it, and convinced that French interests lay in a divided country. The mention of Russia in the above letter makes the following remarkable communication not inappropriate.