Cavour

re strained to catch some sound which never comes. Especially in Lombardy there was a feeling of great depression: no one trusted now in revolution, which the watchfulness of the Aus

oing to let him outdo me." On his side Cavour remarked, "That Archduke is persevering, and will not be discouraged, but I am persevering too, and will not let myself be discouraged." Nevertheless, if there was one thing that Cavour had always feared, it was Austrian conciliation. The gift of a milder rule would change the aspect of the whole question before Europe, and only those ignorant of human nature could suppose that it would en

ty of success. If others were planned with equal deliberation, could the result be doubted? Napoleon was probably putting this question to himself when he appeared in his box, with an impassible face, while the conspirators on the stage sang the chorus of the oaths in Guillaume Tell. Not a cheer greeted the sovereigns, though what had occurred in the street was immediately known. When the first report reached Turin, Cavour exclaimed, "If only this is not the work of Italians!" On receiving the particulars with the name of Orsini, he remembered th

ell as from his entirely sincere abhorrence of political crime, he was quite in earnest in his resolve to go as far as the Statute would let him to keep plotters out of Piedmont. Napoleon, however, affected to consider the action of the Sardinian Government weak and dilatory, an opinion which he expressed with vehemence to General Delia Rocca, who was sent by the king to congratulate him on his escape. He hinted that, if his complaints were not attended to, he should seek an alliance with Austria. All the pride of the Savoy blood rose in the veins of Victor Emmanuel: "Tell the Emperor," he wrote to Delia Rocca, "in the terms you think best, that this is not the way to treat a faithful ally; that I have never tolerated violence from any one; that I follow the path of honour, for which I have to answer to God and to my people; that we have carried our head high for 850 years, and that no one will make me bow it; and t

and of Orsini's trial, on the mind of the Emperor. Cavour had none of the fellow-feeling with conspirators that lurked in Napoleon's brain, and the idea seemed to him absurd that a man should be strongly moved by the pleading of his would-be assassin. Am

nemico ogno

sepolto e sp

alians will go with you!" His own part in the revolutionary movement of 1831 has been shown to have been no boyish freak but serious work, into which he entered with the sole enthusiasm of his life. "I feel for the first time that I live!" he wrote when on the march towards Rome. The Romagna was

anction a new loan for forty million francs, which suggested that, if others were apt to use empty threats, he was not. In June Dr. Conneau, who was travelling "for his amusement," stopped at Turin, where he saw both the king and Cavour. Under the seal of absolute secrecy it was arranged that Napoleon and Cavour should meet "by accident" at Plombières. Next month the minister left Turin to breathe the fresh air of the mountains. He was not in high spirits. To La Marmora, the only man besides the king who knew the true motive of his journey, he wrote, "Pray heaven that I do not commit some stupidity; in spite of my usual self-reliance, I am not without grave uneasiness." He succeeded in travelling so privately that he was nearly arrested on arriving at Plombières because he had not a passport: a mysterious Italian coming from no one knew where-no doubt a new Orsini! But one of the Emperor's suite recognised him, and made things straight. He passed

in the sport of building castles in the air, to which all semi-romantic temperaments are addicted. Still the basis of what bore every appearance of a definite understanding had been established. A rising in Massa and Carrara was to serve as the pretext of war. The object of the war was the expulsion of the Austrians from Italy, to be followed by the formation of a kingdom of Upper Italy, which should include the valley of the Po, the Legations, and the Marches of Ancona. Savoy was to be ceded to France. The fate of Nice was left undecided. To all of these propositions the king had

this end at least 200,000 Frenchmen and 100,000 Italians would be necessary. Cavour has been criticised for acquiescing in the crippled programme of a kingdom of Upper Italy. What was he to do? Victor Amadeus II, in his instructions to the Marquis del Borgo, his minister at the Congress of Utrecht, laid down the rule: "Aller au

e unwillingness of France and the constitutional vacillation of the Emperor would render them barren of results, unless Austria attacked-an eventuality which was considered impossible on all sides. Mazzini, who was generally not only clear-sighted, but also furnished with secret information, the origin of which is even now a mystery, asserted positively that "even if provoked Austria would not attack." The same belief prevailed in the inner circle of diplomacy. When Mr. Odo Russell called on Cavour in December 1858, he remarked that Austria had only to play a waiting game to wear out the financial resources of Piedmont, while, on the oth

whom the heads of the army declared that they would only prove an embarrassment. Cavour listened to no one. He sent for Garibaldi, then at Caprera, and having made sure of his enthusiastic co-operation, he carried out his project without asking the assent of Parliament and without flinching before the most violent opposition, internal and external. Had not Cavour felt so conscious of his strength he would have been afraid of offending Napoleon by "arming the revolution"; but he knew that the best way to deal with men of the Emperor's stamp is to show that you do not fear them. Garibaldi, who never did anything by halves, placed himself and his influence absolutely at Cavour's disposal. "You can tell our friend that he is omnipotent," he wrote to La Farina. He begged the Government to assume despotic power till the issue was decided. Garibaldi did not love the man of the coup d'état; but he knew too much about war to miscalculate either the value or the need of the French alliance. Only a small section of the republicans still stood aloof. Cavour had I

which yet, by some mystery of the human brain, require a man of genius to do them-he sent a draft of the speech to Napoleon and asked him what he thought of it! The Emperor answered that, in fact, the disputed paragraph appeared too strong, and he sent a proposed alteration which made it much stronger! The new version ran: "Our policy rests on justice, the love of freedom, our country, humanity: sentiments which find an echo among all civilised nations. If Piedmont, small in territory, yet counts for something in the councils of Europe, it is because it is great by reason of the ideas it represents and the sympathies it inspires. This position doubtless creates for us many dangers; nevertheless, while respecting treaties, we cannot remain insensible to the cries of grief that reach us from so many parts of Italy." Cavour had the French words turned into good Italian by a literary friend (for he always misdoubted his own grammar); one or two expressions were changed; "humanity" was left o

ht that no such act of aggression would be made, and that he remained free to escape from the contract if he chose. A military convention was signed at the same time, one of the clauses of which Cavour was fully determined to have cancelled; it stipulated that volunteer corps were to be excluded. He signed the convention, but fought out the point afterwards and gained it, in spite of Napoleon's strenuous resistance. These transactions were intended to be kept absolutely secret, and the French ministers do not seem to have known of them, but somehow the European Courts, and Mazzini, got wind of a treaty having been signed. Different rumours went about: the Prince Consort was informed

s easy to exhibit her in that light. After having made Austria look very guilty, Cavour proceeded to lay himself out to conciliate England, whose policy was, at that moment, everything that he wished it not to be; but he was determined not to quarrel. The Earl of Malmesbury kept him informed of the "real state of Italy," of which he was supposed to be profoundly ignorant. The Lombards no longer desired to be united to Piedmont, and a war of liberation would be the signal of the reawakening of all the old jealousies, while republicans, dreamers, pretenders, seekers of revenge, power, riches, would tear up Italy between them. In the House of Lords, Lord Derby declared that the Austrian was the best of good governments, and only sought to improve its Italian provinces. Cavour concealed the irritation which he strongly felt. Lord Derby's speech, he said, did not sound so bad in the original as in the translation, and, after all, England's apparent change of front came from a great virtue, patriotism. She suppressed

at the root of the matter lay the hatred of a foreign yoke. The Austrians in Italy formed, not a government, but a military occupation. They were not established but encamped. Every house, from the humblest home to the most sumptuous palace, was closed against them. In the theatres, public places, streets, there was an absolute separation between them and the people of the country. Things got constantly worse, not better. The Austrian rulers

he Po," he said, "but I will not stop it." Had he wished, he could not have stopped the current of popular excitement at the point it had reached. It was the knowledge of this, joined to the threatened destruction of all his hopes, that well-nigh overpowered him when-at the eleventh hour-in spite of engagements and treaties, Napoleon seemed to have suddenly decided not t