CHAPTER V. 



The Plebiscite from the Middle of the 19TH Century 

 TO THE Beginning of the World War 



The plebiscites held in the Italian principalities were 

 clearly of a revolutionary nature in so far as they served as 

 the means of carrying into effect the revolutionary move- 

 ments against the established governments in those prov- 

 inces in favor of the new allegiances to the Kingdom of 

 Sardinia. That Cavour realized the probability of European 

 opposition to his contemplated annexations on the basis of 

 a revolutionary principle, seems to follow from his attempt 

 to gain the consent of the Emperor of the French by the 

 reminder that it was through the plebiscite that Napoleon 

 had won the imperial crown.^ However, in this process of 

 reasoning, Cavour failed to distinguish between the plebi- 

 scite in matters internal and in afifairs of an international 

 character. It was of this failure that he in turn was re- 

 minded by an officially inspired article of the Constitu- 

 tionnel, of March 30, i860, in which it was made clear that 

 the principle of popular sovereignty could, by false exten- 

 sion, become for Europe the cause of troubles and incessant 

 dangers, that " universal suffrage can be applied only in the 

 interior of a country," and that " it can not serve to modify 

 the exercise of sovereignty in the relations with the outside, 

 nor for an extension of territory."- But Napoleon's oppo- 

 sition was not entirely, nor probably even primarily, 

 prompted by an aversion to the principle involved. With 

 him it was a question of practical politics. 



Savoy and probably Nice had been the price promised 

 Napoleon by Cavour at Plombieres in 1858 for French 



^ Orsi, p. 266. 



'Quoted by Solicre, p. 5. 



7 97 



