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 hardly fewer torments than Palmerston had inflicted on her when he held that office.

Lord John and his chief at once avowed a resolve to serve the interests of Italy at the expense of Austria, and won, in the inner circle of the court, the sobriquet of 'the old Italian masters.' At the same time the course of the negotiations between Napoleon and the emperor of Austria was perplexing alike to the queen and to her ministers. Napoleon had at Villafranca arranged mysterious terms with the emperor of Austria which seemed to the friends of Italy far too favourable to Austria, although they gave France no advantage. Austria was to lose Lombardy, but was to retain Venetia. France protested unwillingness to take farther part in the matter. Sardinia was recommended to rely on her own efforts to obtain whatever other changes she sought in the adjustment of Italy. So barren a result was unsatisfactory to all Italian liberals, and was deemed by Palmerston and Lord John to be grossly unjust to them. They opened diplomatic negotiations with a view to a modification of the proposed treaty, and to the encouragement of the Italians to fight their battle out to the end. The queen, who was relieved by the cessation of hostilities and by the easy terms offered to Austria, stoutly objected to ker ministers' intervention. 'We did not protest against the war,' she told Lord John; 'we cannot protest against the peace.' She insisted that the cry 'Italy for the Italians,' If loudly raised by the government, would compel this country to join Sardinia in war. But Palmerston and Lord John were unmoved by her appeals. Palmerston declared that, if their advice were not acted on, their resignations would follow. In August, when the vacation had scattered the ministers, the queen insisted on the whole cabinet being summoned, so that they might realise her unconquerable determination to observe a strict neutrality. Palmerston affected indifference to her persistency, but Italian affairs were suffered to take their own course without English intervention. Yet the outcome was not agreeable to the queen. As soon as the treaty of Villafranca was signed, Sardinia, aided by Garibaldi, sought at the sword's point, without foreign aid, full control of the independent states of the peninsula outside Rome and Venetia. Although she was aware of the weakness of their cause, the queen could not resist sympathy with the petty Italian rulers who were driven by Sardinia from their principalities. The Duchess of Parma, one of the discrowned sovereigns, appealed to the queen for protection. Lord John, whose stolidity in such matters widened the breach between him and the queen, drew up a cold and bald refusal, which she declined to send. Lord Clarendon, however, was on a visit to her at the moment, and by his advice she gave her reply a more sympathetic tone, without openly defying her ministers.

At the same time, with Sardinia's reluctant assent, Napoleon annexed Savoy and Nice to France as the price of his benevolent service to Italy in the past, and by way of a warning that he would tolerate no foreign intrusion while the internal struggle for Italian unity was proceeding. The queen viewed this episode with especial disgust. That Napoleon should benefit from the confusion into which, in her eyes, he had wantonly thrown southern Europe roused her indignation to its full height. She bitterly reproached her ministers, whom she suspected of secret sympathy with him, with playing

into his hands. Her complaint Napoleon was hardly logical, for she had herself urged on them the strictest neutrality. On 5 Feb. 1860 she wrote to Lord John, 'We have been made regular dupes, which the queen apprehended and warned against all along.' Her hope that Europe would stand together to prevent the annexation was unavailing, and in impotent rage she exclaimed against maintaining further intercourse with France. 'France,' she wrote to her uncle (8 May 1860), 'must needs disturb every quarter of the globe, and try to make mischief, and set every one by the ears. Of course this will end some day in a general crusade against the universal disturber of the world.' But her wrath cooled, and her future action bore small trace of it. In 1860 the ministry gave her another ground for annoyance by proposing to abolish the post of commander-in-chief, and to bring the army entirely under the control of parliament through the secretary of state. She protested with warmth against the change as an infringement of her prerogative, and for the moment the scheme was dropped.

Apart from foreign politics her life still knew no cloud. Her public duties continued to bring her into personal relations with the army which were always congenial to her. On 29 Jan. 1859 she opened Wellington College for the sons of officers, an institution of which she had already laid the foundation-stone. On 6 June she once more distributed Victoria crosses. On 26 Aug. she inspected at Portsmouth the 32rd regiment, whence the heroes