Cavour

orm a striking refutation of the theory, still held by many, especially in Italy, that he was lifted into the sphere of high political aims by a whirlwind none of his sowing.

that plots and revolutions could not make Italy; "at least," he added, "in my opinion it has shown it." What, then, could make her? The raising of her credit. To raise Italy's credit two things were needed: the proof that an Italian Government could

rise from the course adopted, but duty and honour dictated it. Since it had pleased Providence that Piedmont, alone in Italy, should be free and independent, Piedmont was bound to make use of its freedom and independence to plead before Europe the cause of the unhappy peninsula. This perilous task the king and the country were resolved to persevere in to the end. Those French liberals and doctrinaires who were now weeping over the loss of liberty in France, after helping to stifle it in Italy, might consider his policy absurd and romantic; he exposed himself to their censures, sure that all generous hearts would sympathise with the att

els he had spoken of were never won at all? The position of the Sardinian contingent on the first line was not secured without endless diplomacy; Napoleon wished to keep it out of sight as a reserve corps at Constantinople. When, with the aid of England, it was shipped for Balaclava, there still seemed a disposition to hold it back. Cavour wrote bitterly of the prospect of the Sardinian troops being sent by the allies to perish of disease in the trenches

to the war policy; every one thought in secret he had always approved of it. The little flash of glory called attention to the other merits of the Piedmontese soldier besides those he displayed in the field. These merits were truly great. The troops bore with the utmost patience the terrible scourge of the cholera, which cost them 1200 lives. Their English allies were never tired of admiring the good organisation and neatness of their camp, which wa

, but he found encouragement in the fact that when he left, the Emperor told him to write confidentially to Walewski what, in his opinion, he could do for Piedmont and Italy. In England the king was most cordially received, and, if he was rather embarrassed when a portion of the English religious world hailed him as a kind of new Luther, he could not help being struck by the real friendliness shown to him by all classes. Cavour made a strongly favourable impression on Prince Albert, and the Queen

e. The heavy bill for war expenditure, largely exceeding the estimate, damped people's spirits, buoyed up for an instant by victory, and they asked once more, what was the good of it all? Time was to answer the question; but before showing how an

rous and wealthy in proportion to the numbers and wealth of the population. The annual income of the Church, including the religious houses, was nearly ￡700,000 a year. There were 23,000 ecclesiastics, or 1 monk to every 670 inhabitants, 1 nun to every 1695, 1 priest to every 214. In spite of the vast resources of the Church, the parish priest in 2540 villages received a stipend of less than ￡20 per year. Not only radicals but many moderate politicians were of opinion that the great number of convents of the contemplative orders formed an actual evil from the fact of their encouraging able-bodied idleness, and the withdrawal of so considerable a fraction of the population from the work and duties of citizenship. In the autumn of 1854, before the Crimean War was thought of, Rattazzi framed a bill by which the corporations that took no part in public instruction, preaching, or nursing the sick, were abolished. Since the last crisis on the civil marriage bill, which wrecked D'Azeglio's ministry, Cavour, who all his life was not theoretically opposed to coming to an understanding with Rome, had made s

, his vote would be given for the abolition of one monk. He would not imitate those speakers who had attempted to conjure up a canonical or theological defence of the Bill. The Pope was probably a better theologian than he; but he denied that the Church had any prescriptive rights at all: all her privileges and property being held on sufferance of the State, which could withdraw its toleration when it chose. Illustrious Italians, from Dante downwards, denounced the love of power and money of the Church as the bane of Italy. Had not Machiavelli said, "If Italy has fallen a prey not only to powerful barbarians but to whatsoever attack, we Italians are indebted for it to the Church and to nothing else"? Respect for the intentions of the pious founder was a good thing in its way (Brofferio had the sense to see that this was the strongest argu

olicy not approved by the Church was to cease, ipso facto, to be a Catholic. The reasoning might not be true, but it was clear. Charles Albert's old minister drew a beautiful picture of the country in the good old times before the Statute. Then the people did not lack bread. Life and property and the good name of citizens were safeguarded. The finances were not exhausted; the taxes were not excessive; the revenue was not diminishing; treaties were observed; Piedmont possessed that consideration of foreign courts which a wise government can always command, even without the prestige of force:-a picture drawn in a fine artistic free-hand, not slavishly subservient to fact; but as

ion of a convent called Santa Croce to meet the need of a hospital for the military cholera patients. Passing on to larger considerations, he recognised the great services rendered by religious orders in past times, when Europe was emerging from barbarism, and was still a prey to the violence and ignorance of feudal society. Had the religious communities not met a want, they would not have taken root. Civilisation, literature, agriculture, and above all the poor, neglected and oppressed by the secular power, owed them

hought now that he could get on without him, but he was to be undeceived. While he was endeavouring to find some one to undertake the formation of a new cabinet, the country became agitated as it had not been since the stormy year of revolution. Angry crowds gathered in Piazza Castello, within a few yards of the royal palace. "One of these days," Victor Emmanuel said impatiently to his trusted valet, Cinzano, "I'll make an end of these demonstrations," to which the descendant of Gil Blas is reported to have replied as he looked out of window: "And if they made an end of Us?" The whole population woke up to the fact that surrender on this point involved surrender along all the line. The king, however, to whom the compromise appeared in the light of peace with the dead and with the living, with the Superga and with the Vatican, was very unwilling to yield. At the same time no one could be found to form a ministry. In this dangerous crisis, Massimo d'Azeglio wrote a letter to his sovereign which is believed to have

w distasteful the whole affair must be to a man like the king, who said to General Durando when he was starting for the Crimea, "You are fortunate, General, in going to fight the Russians, while I stay here to fight monks and nuns." In its amended form the Bill passed on May 29. Cavour had triumphed completely, but he came out of the struggle physically and mentally exhausted; "a struggle," he wrote to his Geneva friends, "carried

be possible for one capable brain to bend them to its purposes'? In the first instance, Cavour believed that it would not. He did not mean to represent his country at the Congress of Paris, nor did he hope that any good would come out of it for Italy. He wished, however, that Sardinia should figure, if not to her advantage, at any rate with dignity and decorum, and he turned, as he was wont to do when he wanted a "perfect knight," to the rivale, Massimo d'Azeglio. Both men had the little private joke of calling one another by this name in their familiar letters, which shows how free they were from any real jealousy. D'Azeglio was ready to accept what had the prospect of being a most thankless office, but on one condition-that the Sardinian plenipotentiary should be received on an equality with the representatives of the great Powers. Cavour knew that this condition had been explicitly refused; to please Austria, France and E

ady aiming at Italian unity? Perhaps the best answer is, that really it does not matter. To be very anxious to prove the affirmative is to misunderstand the grounds on which we may call Cavour one of the greatest of statesmen. Those grounds are not what he hoped to do, but what he did. He was not a Prometheus chained to a rock, who hopes till hope creates the thing it contemplates. Constitutionally he was easily discouraged. In the abstract he rather exaggerated difficulties than minimised them; but in the face of any present obstacle an invincible confidence came over him in his power to surmount it. As he once wrote of himself-moderate in opinion, he was favourable, rather than not, to extreme and audacious means. However long it may have been before the union of all parts of Italy seemed to Cavour a goal within the range of practical politics (that he always thought it a desirable goal there is not the smallest doubt), there was one, the Tiresias of the old order, who said boldly to the Prime Minister of Piedmont at this very juncture: You are steering straight to Italian unity. Solaro de la Margherita, who once declared that "in speaking of kings all who had not sold their consciences were seized

ing of the future of Italy it was impossible for a Piedmontese minister to entirely separate his desires, his sympathies, from what he considered his political duty: hence there was no more slippery ground than that on which, with consummate art, the Deputy So