Note 99 — Chapter IV · THE DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT.

Mr. Gladstone disapproved of this threat. It is, indeed, very hard to say how much truth there was in the rumours then afloat as to the cession of Sardinia. Vitzthum writes, “hitherto he (Napoleon) had only talked of giving that island to the Pope as an equivalent for the States of the Church. It was with this view that Pietri, the well known entrepreneur du suffrage universel in Savoy, had been busy in that island, and had sent private reports to Napoleon during his visit to the baths at Vichy.”—Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 157.