jul 21, 1858 - Plombieres Meeting

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In July 1858, **Napoleon invited Cavour to a secret meeting at Plombieres.** fulled by the Orsini affair and shifting public sentiment they dissucsed an alliance against Austria. They needed it to be secret due to potential support for Austria from Prussia and British disapproval of aggressive war. While unable to devise a way to provoke Austria into attacking first.

### Plombières Agreement and the Franco-Piedmontese alliance

**Terms of the agreement:**

- Kingdom of upper Italy to be established on the basis of Piedmont Austrian provinces, Parma and Moderna
- The city of Rome to be left under pope’s control
- the rest of Papal states and Tuscany to form a kingdom of Central Italy
- Kingdom of Two Sicilies to be left untouched
- the four Italian states would for a confederation with the pope acting as president (a consolation after loosing most of his territory)
- France would provide 300,000 soldiers for the war against Austria compared to the 200,000 Piedmontese troops. In return, France would receive the territory of Savoy from Piedmont
- Austria would need to be provoked or Piedmont would need a good excuse for the war to isolate the Austrians diplomatically
- Victor Emmanuel’s II’s daughter would marry one of the cousins of Napoleon to cement the alliance
- Those agreements were mostly included in the **Franco-Piedmontese alliance signed in January 1859** —> they decide the pope will not agree so they scrap the confederation agreement and france got nice as they wanted more territory

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