While Italy is becoming internally, for the time at least,
more revolutionary than ever, the chances in favour of reaction are augmenting daily. Provisional Governments rule over the Re- publics of °Rome and Tuscany ; but a combination of crowned and conservative powers is reported, to reinstate the Pope ; and the Tuscan Grand Duke might claim ashore of the patronage be- stowed on the Pontiff, whose interdict he obeyed even at the cost of a throne.
Meanwhile, Austria has quite recovered the bold self-reliance of her tone : Count Colloredo has come over to this country, not to crave advice, but to declare the " intentions " of his Imperial master ; who will not give up an inch of land in Northern Italy. The intentions also are to be stated at the Congress of Brussels ; but anything like foreign intervention in the Austrian states is to be repelled. Austria means to make concessions in the shape of liberal institutions, proprio mote ; so it is said, and liberal or in- telligent conduct in the house of Hapsburg needs cause no stir- prise: but as yet there has been no earnest of any such blessed change. Rather the reverse : Radetzky has been upheld, and the iniquitous forced contribution from distinguished families of the Milanese has not been waived.
If the Italians look to France, small comfort will they find there : the existing Government sympathizes with the Pope, re- pudiates Republican sympathies in Italy, and looks down upon the Constituent Assembly at Rome as a body which it does not recognize. There is a foppery in this contempt, as amusing as that mutability of the French people which permits the new and genteeler fashion of politics in Paris.
