Up to the beginning of July Cavour had rather drifted before events; but La Farina's banishment from Sicily was a warning that those events might run away with him if he did not assert himself. The bolder spirits in his party were advising him to launch an expedition against Naples, so as simultaneously to reap the harvest sown by the radicals and to prevent them extending their influence on to the continent. But Cavour was too much dependent on Napoleon III to be able to push matters so fast, and feared the diplomatic difficulties if Naples was brought in as an additional complication. He had made the Emperor of the French his accomplice so far as Sicily was concerned, but there was a strong Napoleonic interest in Naples, just as there continued to be a strong French interest in seeing that Italian unification did not go beyond a certain point. Sicily was ripe for the harvest, Naples not: ‘les macaronis ne sont pas encore cuits, mais quant aux oranges qui sont déjà sur notre table, nous sommes bien décidés à les manger’. This was the position during June and most of July, while Cavour cast about for a way to annex Sicily. He would never stoop to become an active revolutionary he said, and would on no account foster insurrection at Naples, though in legitimate warfare he was ready to fight the whole world. Only later, when Garibaldi was revealed to be yet more of a menace, did Cavour lower his standards and demean himself to the point of becoming a vulgar revolutionary.