Sardinia and the War - Part 5 - Page 6
© Herman van Meir
Was the Sardinian presence at the Congress then in vain? No, the important work was done not in the spotlights but behind the scenes. Cavour had an agenda of his own. Rather than to intervene in the sessions, whenever the Sardinian interests might be at stake he informed either Clarendon or the French Emperor, and most of the time both. He had direct access to Louis Napoleon through Docteur Conneau, who transmitted Cavour’s notes to the Emperor leading to interventions and rectifications proposed by Walewski in the next session.
The French Emperor wanted peace dearly, and as long as peace was not secured he did nothing that could make Austria nervous. To Cavour he even referred to the Austrian proposal of a conditional lifting of the sequestration in Lombardy. This reference gave Cavour a chance to express his indignation with the Austrian proposal, stating that if he had an army of 150.000 men he would make war against Austria immediately. Very cleverly Cavour, before his departure from Turin had already opened a second line of attack. Prescient that he might be obliged to use ‘the will of the people’; he had sent his friend Castelli to Marco Minghetti, a Minister in the first lay cabinet in the Papal States. By then, Minghetti lived in Bologna a retired, studious life. Cavour asked him to write a note, certified by some honourable men, explaining that the Pope had not kept his promises in the state reform of Rome and the Legates and invited him (instructed him) to come to Paris as soon as possible. As Minghetti was regarded with suspicion by the authorities he could only get a passport on the grounds that he went to Belgium to examine a steam engine in Liège, and after promising not to set foot in Piedmont. On March 3rd Minghetti left for Liège and on March 10th he joined Cavour in Paris. In two days he wrote two notes: one reiterating the accusations that the Pope had betrayed the people by not keeping his promises, a second one proposing reforms for the Papal Legates. Not bad, judged Cavour, he might make a good minister (some years later he did).
On March 13th Cavour handed Minghetti’s note to Clarendon, and a day later to the French Emperor, inviting their comments. Having adopting some of these and after a meeting on March 19th between Cavour Clarendon and Napoleon III for further verbal explanation, the text was made final by the end of the month. The French Emperor was looking to bring some points to the conference table that were not connected with the Crimean War and he intended to link the Italian problem to the Greek question.
