4 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



pressed upon him that he is to employ his utmost 

 influence so that our intervention may secure genuine 

 and real guarantees of liberty for the Koman 

 States." 



I should have said that the Minister of Foreign 

 Affairs had sent for me on the morning of the 8th, 

 after the day and night sitting of the Assembly, at 

 both of which I had been present, and had asked me 

 if I was disposed to undertake a very important 

 mission for which the Ministry, at the Cabinet Council 

 just held, had selected me. 



I replied that, as I had been deemed worthy of so 

 high a mark of confidence, I felt it my duty frankly 

 to declare that if the Government had not, at the out- 

 set, been animated by an open and resolute policy, it 

 would have been much better not to have compromised 

 us by sending an expedition to Civita Vecchia. How- 

 ever, I added, the point now is to repair the mischief 

 done by the affair of April 30th and not to fall into 

 the same blunder again. I also said that I should be 

 ready to start in two hours if necessary, and I pro- 

 mised to leave no stone unturned to arrive at the aim 

 indicated in the vote of the previous day. M. Drouyn 

 de Lhuys congratulated me upon my readiness, and 

 added that the manner in which I expressed myself 

 went far to show that the Government had made a 

 judicious selection. "While I was with him he sent 

 for the chief clerk of the political department, M. de 

 Yiel-Castel, and requested him to draw up instructions 



