Cavour

ping aloof from the governing class in his own country, connection with which could, in his opinion, only bring loss of reputation and effacement in the better days that were t

nnihilated matter. She joined French vivacity to the penetrating sensibility of the Sclavonic races, and she was a keen reader of character. Cavour interested her at once. Even in his exterior, the young Italian, with blond hair and blue eyes, was then more attractive than those who only knew the Cavour of later years could easily believe; while his gay and winning manners, combined with a fund of information on subjects not usually popular with the young, could not but strike so discerning a judge as the Countess de Circourt as indicating not a common personality. She feared lest so much talent and promise would be suffocated for ever in the stifling air of a small despotism. Cavour himself drew a miserable picture of his country: science and intelligence were reputed "infernal things by those who are obliging enough to govern us"; a triumphant bigotry trembled alike at railways and Rosmini; Cavour's aunt, the Duchess de Clermont Tonnerre, only got permission to receive the Journal des Débats after long negotiations between the French minister at Turin and the Sardinian government. No wonder if Mme. de Circourt impulsively entreated the young man to shake the dust of Piedmont off his feet and to seek a career in France. In his answer to this proposition, he asks first of all, what have his parents done that he should plunge a knife into their hearts? Sacred duties bound him to them, and he would never quit them till they were separated by the grave. This filial piety stands the more to Cavour's credit, as his home life had not been very happy. He went on to inquire, what real inducement was there for him to abandon his native land? A literary reputation? Was he to run after a little celebrity, a little glory, without ever reaching the real goal of his ambition? What influence could he exercise in favour of his unhappy brothers in a country where egotism monopolised the high places? What was the mass of foreigners doing which had been thrown into Paris

d Heine's good angel, the fair hostess bestowed on him such a republican lecture that he wrote, "They will not catch me there again"; but he went. At the Duchess d'Abrantés' receptions he met "the relics of all the governments." He only spoke on one occasion to Guizot. The minister seems to have received him coldly. He remarked that with these great people you must be a person of importance to make any way; an obscure citizen of Piedmont, unknown beyond the commune of which he was syndic, could have no chance. With Thiers he got on much better; principles apart, their temperaments were not inharmonious. Of the literary men Cavour preferred Sainte Beuve; in Cousin he cared less for the philosopher than for the friend of Santorre di Santa Rosa, the exiled patriot of 1821. Cousin introduced him to several fervid Italian liberals, among others Ber

ties; his "miserable weakness" degrades him in his own eyes; conscience, reason, self-respect, interest, call upon him to fight against it and destroy it. From high play at cards to gambling on the Bourse there is but a step. Cavour embarked in a speculation the success of which depended on the outbreak of war in the East, which he believed to be imminent. No war occurred, and the loss of a few hundred pounds obliged him to apply to his father for supplies. The Marquis sent the money, and wrote good-naturedly that the mishap might teach Camille to moderate his belief in his own infallibility. He thought himself the only young man in the world in whom there was a ready-made minister, banker,

ressed his thanks in a few words, which were well received, and on sitting down he said to his neighbour, the Earl of Ripon, "C'est mon maiden speech!" Lord Ripon remarked, "with a significant smile," that he hoped it would be the opening of a long career. He dined with John Murray, and went to see Faraday, who in his working clothes made him think of a philosopher of the sixteenth century. At a party given by Babbage, the mathematician, he met Hallam, Tocqueville, Ada Byron, and the three beautiful daughters of Sheridan. With Nassau Senior he began a long friendship, and Edward Romilly, the librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge, whom he had met at Geneva, introduced him to a rich landed proprietor of the name of Davenport, who was to prove the most useful of all his English acquaintances, as he liberally placed his house in Cheshire at Cavour's disposal to give him an opportunity of studying English agriculture. The chance was not thro

prison fare seemed to him rather too good. He was impressed by the bread "as good as the best that is consumed in the clubs." Probably, next to the policeman, what impresses the thinking foreigner most in the British Isles is the Englishman's loaf of white bread. It might appear that in his close study of utilitarian England, Cavour missed the greater England of imagination and adventure, of genius and energy. It is true that he did homage at the shrine of Shakespeare by a visit to Stratford-on-Avon, and that he declared that there was no sight in the world equal to the Life Guards on their superb black horses. But his real appreciation of the greatness of England is not to be looked for in the jottings of the tourist; it stands forth conspicuo

bolition of the Corn Laws at a time when no one else anticipated it. When he himself was charged by his old friends in the Turin Chamber with desertion and treason, he reminded them that the same charges had been made against Peel, but that he was largely compensated by the knowledge that he had saved England from socialist commotions, which in

alist, to know, what he knew himself, that Cavour was almost in a minority of one. He was not acquainted with a single English politician; no one influenced him; he judged the Irish question from the study of history past and present, and having formed an unpopular opinion, he was prepared to stand by it. He never held that politics are a game of chance; he believed that they are subject to fixed laws of cause and effect, and he worked out political problems by seeking and applying these laws to the case in point without passion or prejudice. Having satisfied himself that the union of Ireland and England was for the good of both, he was not disposed to quarrel with the means by which it was accomplished. When Pitt failed to carry the Bill for the Union through the Irish House of Commons, he resorted to the expedient, "which had never failed in the Dublin Parliament," of corruption on a large scale. He bought rotten boroughs; he was prodigal of places, honours, pensions, and at the en

swayed by sentiment, he never entirely recognised the part that sentiment plays in politics. He blamed O'Connell for demanding repeal, which, even if possible to obtain, would do as much harm to Ireland as to England, instead of supporting measures that would remove all cause for Irish discontent. Had he lived long enough

ral and material resources of the world, and whose mission was far from ended. The masses were almost everywhere hostile to it. It was a mistake to suppose that this was the feeling of France alone; it might be expressed more loudly there, but it was, in fact, universal. The enemies of progress and the partisans of political subversion looked on England as their worst adversary: the former charged her with being

hich was the passionate desire of all-emancipation. A very small number of ideas forms the intellectual hinge of man in the aggregate; of these patriotism is only second in importance to religion. Any conception of national dignity in the masses was impossible without the pride of nationality. Every private interest, every political dissension, should be laid aside that Italian independence might become a fact. Cavour always spoke of Italy-not of Piedmont, not of Lombardy and Venetia. Rome, still of all cities the richest in precious memories and splendid hopes, would be the centre of an iron network uniting the whole peninsula. Some well-intentioned patriots objected to the inc

never came? Can we conceive Cavour's immense energy limited

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f pain and ru

lenty o'er a

hist'ry in a

hich his age rejects, but the total waste of such a force as the mind of Cavour seems le