RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY 

 YEARS. 



CHAPTEE I. 



THE MISSION TO ROME. 

 OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS. 



WHEN the Austrian army was hanging upon tho 

 frontiers of Piedmont, the French National 

 Assembly, using its right of initiative, called upon 

 the Ministry to assume a resolute attitude, and autho- 

 rised it, should such a step be deemed in the best 

 interests of France, to occupy temporarily some part 

 of the Italian peninsula. A few days after this had 

 been voted, the news of the reverse sustained by the 

 Piedmontese army at Novara reached Paris. The 

 President of the Council laid before the Assembly, 

 upon the 16th of April, 1849, an estimate of 48,000 

 for the extraordinary expenses which the maintenance 

 of the expeditionary force for three months in the 

 Mediterranean would, it was estimated, entail. The 

 credit was voted, and a force was sent to occupy Civita 



VOL. I. B 



