The treaty of peace concluded at Zurich between the 
Plenipotentiaries of France and Austria, appears, in its main 
features, a simple reproduction of the articles stipulated at 
Villafranca.**”’ The negotiations for the definitive peace consuming 
about twice as much time as the operations of the war that 
stopped short before the walls of Mantua, there were a great many 
sanguine people ready to account for the slow-coach progress of 
the peacemakers by a deep-laid scheme on the part of Louis 
Bonaparte, who, they said, wanted to give to the Italians full scope 
for taking their affairs in their own hands, so that, Italian unity 
having once consolidated itself, the French liberator might, with 
good grace, back out of the awkward concessions made to Francis 
Joseph, and, from the word of his bond, appeal to the superior 
force of a fait accompli. Political contracts are not exempt from the 
casualties besetting civil contracts, which, according to the Code 
Napoléon, get nullified by the interference of a force majeure.” The 
people arguing in this way have again betrayed their woful 
ignorance, not only of their pet hero’s character, but of the 
traditional diplomacy of France, from the Red Cardinal* down to 
the Man of December, and from the profligates of the Directory 
down to the Blues of 1848.°% The first article of that traditional 
diplomacy proclaims it the first duty of France to prevent the 
formation on her confines of mighty States, and, consequently, 
under all circumstances, to keep up the anti-Unitarian Constitu- 
tions of Italy and Germany. It is the same policy that dictated the 
peace of Münster, and the peace of Campoformio.*” The real 

purpose aimed at by the time-killing Zurich transactions has now 
become as plain as daylight. If, in the beginning of July, Louis 
Bonaparte had tried to enforce the Villafranca stipulations, at a 
time when his own army was flushed with victory, when popular 
passion ran high in Italy, and when France was soothing her 
wounded pride by the fanciful dream that she bore with slavery at 
home in order to impart freedom abroad, the Dutch usurper 
would have let loose upon himself fierce antagonistic powers more 
difficult to be grappled with than even the stubborn quadrilateral 
between the Mincio and the Adige. He could not have relied upon 
his own army, he would have roused Italy to action, and he might 
have given the signal for an insurrection in Paris. From 
melodramatic sublimity, got up for the occasion, to pass over to 
the matter-of-fact vulgarity of an imposture preconcerted, nothing 
was wanted but time. There is still a French army quartered on 
Italian soil, but from an army of liberation, it has turned into an 
army of occupation, whose everyday intercourse with the natives is 
anything but amiable—familiarity having, as usual, bred contempt. 
France, on her part, has awoke from her short-lived dream, 
shuddering at the danger of a European coalition, pondering over 
an old army lost and a new public debt created, and more 
distrustful than ever of the zdées Napoléoniennes. As to Italy herself, 
we must judge her state from facts, not from proclamations. 
There is Garibaldi unable to get the money to be laid out in arms 
for the army of volunteers,**' and there is this very army whose 
force appears almost ludicrous if one compares it to the numbers 
flocking to the standards in Prussia, during the war of independ- 
ence,’ at a time when Prussia had become of more diminutive 
dimensions than Lombardy. 

Mazzini himself, in his appeal to Victor Emmanuel,* confesses 
that the national stream of enthusiasm is rapidly congealing in 
provincial ponds, and that the conditions of a return to the old 
state of things, are in the finest way of maturing.” It is true that 
the dreary intermezzo between the treaty ‘of Villafranca and the 
peace of Zurich was filled up, in the Duchies and the Romagna, by 
some great state actions,“ under the management of Piedmontese 
stage directors; but, despite the noisy plaudits from all the 
galleries of Europe, those political tricksters played only into the 
hands of their secret foes. The Tuscanese, Modenese, Parmesans 
and Romagnoles, were welcome to establish Provisional Govern- 
ments, to depose their absentee Princes from their diminutive 

thrones, and to proclaim Victor Emmanuel the Re eletio*; but, at 
the same time, they were strictly enjoined to content themselves 
with these formalities, keep quiet, and leave the rest to the French 
providence just about to settle their destinies at Zurich, and 
peculiarly averse to freaks of enthusiasm, outbreaks of popular 
passions, and _allures révolutionnaires” in general. They were to 
expect everything, not from the vigor of their exertions, but from 
the modesty of their behavior—not from their own power, but 
from a foreign despot’s grace. A landed estate could not be more 
calmly transferred from one proprietor to another than Central 
Italy was to pass from the foreign yoke to national self- 
government. Nothing was changed in the internal administration, 
all popular agitation was hushed, the liberty of the press itself 
stifled, and, for the first time perhaps in the history of Europe, 
the fruits of a revolution seemed to be gathered without the trials 
of a revolution being undergone. With all this the political 
atmosphere of Italy had sufficiently cooled down to allow Louis 
Bonaparte to come out with his foregone conclusions and leave 
the Italians to their own angry impotence. With a French army at 
Rome, another French army in Lombardy, one Austrian army 
frowning down from the Tyrol, another Austrian army holding 
the quadrilateral, and, above all, with the extinguisher so 
successfully put upon popular enthusiasm by its Piedmontese 
managers.there remains at present but small hope for Italy. As to 
the peace of Zurich itself, we call particular attention to two 
articles‘ not to be found in the first edition of the treaty.*” By one 
of the articles Sardinia is saddled with a debt of 250,000,000 frs., 
partly to be paid to Francis Joseph, partly accruing from the 
responsibility thrown upon her for three-fifths of the liabilities of 
the Lombardo-Venetian bank. With this new debt of 250,000,000 
frs. added to the debts contracted during the Crimean expedition 
and the last Italian war, beside a little bill for his armed 
patronage which Louis Bonaparte presented a few days since, 
Sardinia will soon find herself on a level of financial prosperity 
with her hated antagonist. The other article alluded to stipulates 
that 

“the territorial limits of the Independent States of Italy, which did not take part 
in the last war, can be changed only with the assent of the other Powers of Europe, 
which took part in forming and guaranteeing the existence of these States.” At the 

same time, “the rights of the Princes of Tuscany, Modena, and Parma, are expressly 
reserved by the high contracting Powers.” 

Thus the provisional Italian Governments, having played the 
part cut out for them, are most scornfully ignored, and the 
populations, whom they have contrived to keep in such a normal 
state of passiveness, may, if they like, go a-begging at the doors of 
the framers of the treaty of Vienna. 

Written on October 20, 1859 Reproduced from the New-York