io6 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



At the second sitting of the Council of State, reply- 

 ing to an examination which lasted four hours, I 

 pointed out how impartially I had judged the internal 

 situation of Eome, free as I was from all political 

 preoccupation or influences. For, in truth, happen- 

 ing to be in Paris a very few days after my return 

 from Madrid, and being about to accept the legation 

 at Berne, I should not have agreed to undertake the 

 temporary mission to Italy unless I had had a well- 

 defined object placed before me, and if I had had to 

 deal all of a sudden with questions which I had not 

 had time to prepare myself for. All that I had, as I 

 considered, to do was to prevent a renewal of hos- 

 tilities between the French army and the Eomans, 

 and to avoid the recurrence of a misunderstanding 

 similar to that of April 30, which had created so 

 painful a sensation in France. To bring about a sus- 

 pension of hostile demonstrations upon either side, to 

 prevent, pending further orders, a bloody collision 

 which neither the Ministry nor the National Assembly 

 then desired, to ascertain what fresh events had taken 

 place since April 30, to see that I did not involve or 

 allow any one else to involve my Government defi- 

 nitely either in war or peace until it had had time to 

 be informed of how things stood and could decide 

 for itself, and not to recognise but not to destroy 

 by force of arms the Eoman Eepublic, such were the 

 points to which I was told to direct my attention 

 when I started from Paris. 



