Alps and the sea. Her natural limits are defined with as much
exactitude as if she were an island. Italy is only united to the
Continent by 150 leagues of frontier, and these 150 leagues are
fortified by the highest barrier that can be opposed to man. Italy,
isolated between her natural limits, is destined to form a great and
powerful nation. Italy is one nation; unity of customs, language and
literature must, within a period more or less distant, unite her
inhabitants under one sole government. And Rome will, without the
slightest doubt, be chosen by the Italians as their capital.'

Unlike Dante and Machiavelli, who could only sow the seed, not gather
the fruit, the man who wrote these lines might have made them a
reality. Had Napoleon wished to unite Italy--had he had the greatness
of mind to proclaim Rome the capital of a free and independent
state instead of turning it into the chief town of a French
department--there was a time when he could plainly have done it.
Whether redemption too easily won would have proved a gain or a loss
in the long run to the populations welded together, not after their
own long and laborious efforts, but by the sudden exercise of the will
of a conqueror, is, of course, a different matter. The experiment was
not tried. Napoleon, whom the simple splendour of such a scheme ought
to have fascinated, did a very poor thing instead of a very great one:
he divided Italy among his relations, keeping the lion's share for
himself.

Napoleon's policy in Italy was permanently compromised by the
abominable sale of Venice, with her two thousand years of freedom, to
the empire which, as no one knew better than he did, was the pivot of
European despotism. After that transaction he could never again come
before the Italians with clean hands; they might for a season make him