It is known, too, that the force which Napoleon
III. had assembled in the Adriatic was very strong, and could have been
so used as to have promoted an Hungarian insurrection in a sense not at
all pleasant to the Austrians, to have attacked Dalmatia and Istria, and
to have aided in the deliverance of Venice. That force was largely naval
in its character, and the French navy was burning to distinguish itself
in a war that had been so productive of glory to the sister-service: it
would have had a Magenta and a Palestro of its own, won where the Dorias
and the Pisani had struggled for fame and their countries' ascendency.
Instead of the Quadrilateral being a bar to the French, it would have
been a trap to the Austrians, who would have been taken there after the
manner in which Napoleon I. took their predecessors at Ulm. After the
war was over, it came out that Verona was not even half armed.
If Napoleon III. was bent upon carrying that imitation of his uncle, of
which he is so fond, to the extent of granting a magnanimous peace to a
crushed foe, he may be said to have caricatured that which he sought
to imitate.
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