That hope was now at an end.

In vain did Lord Whitworth, our ambassador at Paris, seek to help the Russian envoy to gain a fit indemnity.

Sienna and its lands were named, as if in derision; and though George III.

and the Czar ceased not to press the claims of the House of Savoy, yet no more tempting offer came from Paris, except a hint that some part of European Turkey might be found for him; and the young ruler nobly refused to barter for the petty Siennese, or for some Turkish pachalic, his birthright to the lands which, under a happier Victor Emmanuel, were to form the nucleus of a United Italy.[219] A month after the absorption of Piedmont came the annexation of Parma.

The heir to that duchy, who was son-in-law to the King of Spain, had been raised to the dignity of King of Etruria; and in return for this aggrandizement in Europe, Charles IV.