Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/903

Bourgeois and Clermont: Rome ct Napoleon III 893 the fatuity with which, twenty-one years later, he allowed his entangle- ment at Rome to cost him the help of Italy and Austria in his struggle with Prussia. Although the authors assign nearly half of their volume to the first episode, the second and third sections really contain the freshest ma- terial, especially the chapter on the attempt at a triple alliance (France- Austria-Italy) in 1869, and the chapter entitled " Le 25 juillet: Rome et r Empire ". Professor Bourgeois, to whom this part of the work falls, shows that Napoleon, after having set in motion the negotiations for the secret alliance and found his would-be partners willing, failed to make a binding league. Yet in the following year he went on to act as if the league had been clinched, when, on declaring war, he assumed that Austria and Italy would support him. M. Bourgeois apparently believes that, although documentary proof cannot be produced, Italy and Austria had given the emperor sufficient reason to rely on them and then deserted him. But surely if the Imperialists had any papers to that effect, they would long ago have published them, in order to lift from their shoulders some of the terrible responsibility for bringing calamity on France. However that may be. Professor Bourgeois states that on July 25 — which " with Sedan and the capitulation of the French army are the most unhappy dates in our history " — Napoleon refused to sanction the entry of the Italians into Rome as the price of Italian co-operation. M. Bourgeois admits that the Clericals, working through the empress, had a large share in this decision, but that Ollivier, on his own admission, finally persuaded the emperor to adopt it. And thus Nemesis exacted full retribution for the crime of 1849. The authors provide an extended criticism of the authorities used by them. They regret that much necessary material is still inaccessible — not only foreign material but imperialist, which the Bonapartists con- trol. Ollivier alone, of the old ministers, has become garrulous. But in Italy the memoirs and correspondence of Nigra and Visconti Yenosta, not to mention those of lesser men, would be needed to complete the sources on that side — it is not clear that our authors know Chiala's in- dispensable work — and in Austria Beust, the younger Metternich and others are still to be heard from — for Beust's revelations are obviously only partial. How much is hidden in Prince Napoleon's papers no one can say. Empress Eugenie is supposed to have rescued the most im- portant secret documents before her flight from Paris, but her memoirs may not be printed for many years, and they may not be trustworthy. And yet, in spite of gaps in the evidence, the general accuracy of MM. Bourgeois and Clermont's analysis cannot be doubted. Were nothing more ever to be added to the testimony it would be perfectly clear that Louis Napoleon in forcing himself into the position of pro- tector of the Pope, unwittingly hampered his future policy and prepared his own downfall. AM HIST. REV., VOL. XI. — 5S.