Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/406

 himself. As the advisers upon whom he depended were removed by death, the absence of military capacity which his habitual reticence had concealed was manifested by his extraordinary ignorance of the weakness of the force which he had at his disposal, and the utter rottenness of its organization. Meanwhile Italian assassins warned Louis's advisers of the desperate insecurity of the tenure by which they held their own position, and of the necessity of distracting the attention of the restless spirits who made it their business to inquire into their master's title. Within a year, therefore, of the execution of Orsini and his friend, a quarrel was fastened on the Austrian ambassador, which reminded us of the first Emperor's insult to our own Lord Whitworth, and the Imperial word went forth that Italy was to be freed "from the Alps to the Adriatic." Although Louis was unable to accomplish this programme, he was enabled by great good fortune, the aid of Sardinia, the execrably bad generalship of the Austrians, and the military prestige which still attached to the French name, to pave the way for this result; and Austria was not only humbled, but had moreover to surrender Venetia to Sardinia. No sooner was the war over, than Louis was suspected of casting longing eyes at the territories of his brave little ally, and in A Scene from the New Pantomime, he figures as clown, holding a revolver in his hand, with a goose marked "Italy" in his capacious pocket,