effects which would have ensued if the corrections of the federal constitution adopted at Richmond had been completed in timely pursuance of this advice ; but it ought to note that there was more at work than fanaticism and ambition on one side and provincial pride and private cupidity on the other.
That Austria took the final step towards war in 1866, by refusing to consider territorial changes at the congress, is technically correct. But the terms of the refusal were not so peremptory. Count Mensdorff made it a condition "qu'on exclura des délibérations toute combinaison qui tendrait à donner à un des états invités aujourd'hui à la reunion un agrandissement territorial ou un accroissement de puissance. Sans cette garantie préalable qui écarte les prétentions ambitieuses et ne laisse plus de place qu’à des arrangements équitables pour tous au même degré, il nous paraitrait impossible de compter sur une heureuse issue des délibérations proposées." This cautious language does not prohibit exchanges ; for Austria had attempted, too late, to neutralise Italy by the offer of Venetia, with a view to compensation in Silesia. Dr. Bright doubts whether Bismarck was unscrupulous enough to use the duchies throughout as the means of a quarrel with Austria. That statesman explained his purpose to General Govone with the same laudable candour with which he spoke of ceding the Rhine-frontier down to Coblenz. The duchies were too weak a basis to justify a great war in the eyes of Europe, but they served to irritate King William and to detach him from legitimacy : "Chiamare l'Austria a parte della guerra danese e vedere di cementare cosi l’alleanza austro-prussiana. Questa esperienza essere completamente fallita, o direi piuttosto completamente riuscita, . . . e l'esperienza avere guarito il rè e moltepersone sull' alleanza austriaca." Govone's despatches were published by La Marmora, and suggested to that distant countryman of Machiavelli the pertinent gloss : "In politica come in tutte le faccende della vita, il migliore modo di essere furbo e di non ricorrere mai alle cosi dette furberie."
The theory of the war of 1870 is not so sound as that
