reconstructed in a few days, with Massimo d'Azeglio at its head, but without Cavour. He took advantage of his exclusion from office to pay a hasty visit to England and France, and to renew the friendships he had formed with many of the most eminent men of both countries.*

A weak and vacillating Ministry could not long hold together when deprived of its ablest member. Having become involved in a serious dispute with the Holy See on the question of civil marriages, it resigned on the 26th of October. Cavour was called upon to form a Government, but, finding it impossible to come to terms with the Pope's agent, who put forward the monstrous pretension of the exclusive jurisdiction of Rome in all ecclesiastical matters, he withdrew. After several ineffectual attempts to bring together a Ministry, the King yielded to the condition upon which alone Cavour would accept officeresistance to the demands of Rome. He became the chief of a new Government, as President of the Council and Minister of Finance.

From this period is to be dated Cavour's career as the 'Minister of Italy,' and that bold and vigorous foreign and domestic policy which has enabled Piedmont to gather round her the whole Italian race, and to become, from a third-rate State of little importance, one of the Great Powers of Europe. During the following two years he passed a number of important measures which tended to develop the resources and increase the prosperity of Piedmont. A system of railroads was planned for the country, chiefly with the assistance of the able engineer Paleocapa, whom he named his Minister of Public Works. The principles of free-trade were further extended, and a convention was signed with England in 1854, for the reciprocal opening of the coasting-trade.

In 1854 the war broke out between the Western Powers and Russia. In January of the following year a treaty was concluded between England, France, and Sardinia, by which the latter agreed to send an army of 15,000, afterwards increased to 25,000 men, to the Crimea. This treaty-which was condemned at the time by many in this country, and met with a powerful opposition in the Sardinian Chambers, although it was well received

It was during this visit to England that Cavour made that midnight excursion through the lowest and most filthy parts of London which was so characteristic of his desire to get at the bottom of everything, and to ascertain for himself the merits of those social questions in which he took so deep an interest. A very interesting and graphic description, from the pen of one of his companions, of that night's proceedings, when the lowest dens of infamy and vice were visited under the care of a London detective, has appeared in a weekly paper.

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by the people at large-was a master-stroke of policy. It affords the strongest proof of the wisdom of its author, and would alone establish his claim to the title of a great statesman. That the Minister of a small State involved in most serious political and financial difficulties, and scarcely recovered from a terrible catastrophe which had exhausted her resources and had almost destroyed her army, should have calmly and in cold blood entered upon a war with a powerful empire, was an instance of daring for which a parallel can scarcely be found in history. But the step was not taken hastily, as the act of a desperate man, nor without calculating all the consequences it involved. On the contrary, Cavour's far-seeing mind had most completely anticipated them. In the great speech which he delivered in defence of his policy, he pointed out, with irresistible logic, its motives, and predicted with marvellous forethought its results.

After showing that with the Bosphorus and Dardanelles in her hands Russia would in time have the greatest naval arsenal in the world, which, with her vast military strength, would render her power irresistible, he exclaimed, I may be asked what matters it to us that Russia should have the mastery of the Mediterranean? It may be said that that mastery does not belong to Italy, nor to Sardinia; it is now the possession of England and of France; instead of two masters, the Mediterranean will have three. I cannot believe that such sentiments can find an echo in this Assembly. They would amount to a giving up of our hopes of the future!'

Rising, as he sometimes did, from the conversational tone in which his speeches were generally delivered, to impassioned eloquence, he ended by pouring forth these words of warning and advice to his countrymen :

'How will this treaty, you will perhaps ask me, avail Italy? I will answer you; in the only way in which we-or in which perhaps any one can help Italy in the present condition of Europe. The experience of past years, and of past centuries, has proved-has proved at least to my satisfaction-how little conspiracies, plots, revolutions, and ill-directed movements have profited Italy. So far from doing so, they have proved the greatest calamity which has afflicted this fair part of Europe; not only from the vast amount of human misery they have entailed, not only because they have been the cause and excuse for acts of increasing severity, but especially because these continual conspiracies, these repeated revolutions, these ineffectual risings, have had the effect of lessening the esteem, and even, to a certain extent, the sympathy which the other nations of Europe once felt for Italy.

'Now I believe that the first condition of any improvement in the fate of Italy, that which comes before all others, is that we should

should restore to her her good name, and so act that all nations, governments, and peoples should render justice to her great qualities. And to this end two things are necessary-first, that we should prove to Europe that Italy has sufficient civil virtue to govern herself with order and to form herself for liberty, and that she is capable of receiving the most perfect system of government known to us; and secondly, that we should show that in military virtue we are not inferior to our ancestors.

'You have already rendered one service to Italy by the conduct you have pursued for seven years, proving in the clearest way to Europe that the Italians are able to govern themselves with wisdom, prudence, and loyalty. It remains for you to render her no less a service-if not even a greater-it remains for you to show that the sons of Italy can fight like brave men on the fields of glory. And I am persuaded that the laurels which our soldiers will gather in the plains of the East will profit more to the future of Italy than all that has been done by those who have thought by declamations and by writings to effect her regeneration.'

Cavour was not disappointed in the estimate he had formed of the Sardinian army. By their courage, their discipline, and their soldier-like qualities they established a reputation not inferior to that of the best troops in Europe. But what was of no less importance, the glory gained on the field of battle removed that feeling of discouragement which had arisen after the fatal defeat of Novara, and a nucleus of Italian soldiers was formed around which would be gathered in time an Italian army.

In the autumn of 1855 Cavour accompanied the King to France and England. He was received in this country with marks of the highest respect, and had opportunities not only of communicating officially with the members of the Government, but of seeing the principal political men of all parties, with whose opinions and history he had an intimate acquaintance which appeared extraordinary to those who were not acquainted with his habit of following our debates, and his power of remembering what he read. He attributed great importance to this short visit, principally because it enabled him to place his own views as to the future of Italy, which had been greatly misunderstood, before the most influential leaders of public opinion.

The

What Cavour had so clearly foreseen now came to pass. treaty of alliance with England and France made Italy. Austria knew it well from the first-hence her undisguised jealousy of it. From henceforth Italy was to be recognised as a nation, and to take her place accordingly in the councils of Europe. Peace was to be concluded by conferences in which the Great Powers were to be represented. Sardinia claimed her right to be present as a belligerent. In spite of the remonstrances of Vol. 110.-No. 219.

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Austria

Austria she was admitted, and Cavour brought before the assembled statesmen the condition of Italy. For the first time the national wishes and hopes had been expressed by an Italian in a European council. For the first time Italy had been heard in her own justification and defence; and, fortunately for her, she had found an advocate in the most able, the most wise, and the most moderate of her sons. Cavour made a deep impression upon his colleagues by the clearness of his views, and the singular ability with which he urged them. He spoke seldom, but always to the point; and his opinions had much weight. Unable to enter fully into the Italian question at the conferences, he addressed two state papers upon it to Lord Clarendon.* In them he proved, by indisputable facts, how impossible it was for Piedmont to develop her material resources, or her free institutions, whilst hemmed in on all sides by Austrian bayonets, exposed to endless intrigues, and compelled for her own safety to make a constant drain upon her finances. It is evident by his language in the Congress, and by these documents, that Cavour still looked to a solution of the Italian difficulty in the withdrawal of the French and Austrian troops from the territories of the Pope, and in a reform of the Italian governments themselves. His plan-at any rate for the temporary settlement of the question-was a confederation of Italian states with constitutional institutions, and a guarantee of complete independence from the direct interference and influence of Austria; and the secularisation of the Legations with a lay vicar under the suzerainty of the Pope. At that time he would have been even willing to acquiesce in the occupation of Lombardy by Austria, had she bound herself to keep within the limits of the treaty of 1815. Had Austria shown more wisdom and moderation, there can be little doubt that the, excuse for French intervention would have been removed, and that the great struggle which has since taken place in Italy might have been deferred for many years.

The language of Cavour at the Conferences of Paris had only tended to embitter the relations between Austria and Sardinia. Mutual recriminations led at length to the recall of the Austrian Minister from Turin, on the 16th of March, 1857, followed by the withdrawal of the Sardinian Minister from Vienna. War now became sooner or later inevitable. Neither the finances nor the political condition of Sardinia could bear the presence of a vast and threatening army on her frontiers.

*Correspondence with Sardinia respecting the State of Affairs in Italy. Parl. Papers, 1856.

On

On the other hand, constitutional institutions and a free press in Piedmont, the gathering-place of refugees from all parts of the Peninsula, who fomented discontent in the neighbouring states, were incompatible with the tranquillity of Lombardy. Open war was preferable to this hostile peace. Austria increased her troops by sending about 50,000 men across the Alps. Cavour asked the Chambers to sanction a loan of forty millions of lire to enable the Government to prepare for any events. He was resolutely opposed by the reactionary party, but obtained a majority after a remarkable speech delivered during the best part of two days' sittings,

Unfortunately the good understanding which had hitherto existed between Cavour and the English Ministry had suffered since the Treaty of Paris. In advocating with France the union of the Danubian Principalities, he had opposed our policy. He pleaded that Lord Clarendon himself had, in the first instance, taken a similar view, and that it was unjust to demand that he should change his opinion merely because England had changed hers. This slight estrangement was increased by the temporary cession of Villafranca to Russia as a harbour for commercial steamers and a coal depôt. In consenting to this arrangement, which conferred no territorial rights, Cavour wished to conciliate that power now that the object of the Crimean campaign had been attained, and desired at the same time to aim a blow at Austria, whose great mercantile steam association, the Austrian Lloyd,' was threatened by the establishment of the rival Russian company for the navigation of the Black and Mediterranean Seas. The English Government, not unnaturally, suspected that Russia had ulterior objects in view, and that the fine vessels built for her were not solely intended for passengers and trade.

These differences with the English Government, and the absence of anything more than a cold sympathy on its part in the quarrel with Austria, led Cavour to turn for aid to France. He felt that the war which was impending, a war in which the very existence of Piedmont as a free state would be imperilled, rendered a close alliance with that nation absolutely necessary. Overtures were consequently made to the Emperor which led to the celebrated interview at Plombières in the autumn of 1858. On that occasion an arrangement was come to, soon afterwards to be ratified by the marriage of the daughter of Victor Emmanuel with Prince Napoleon. Its first result was the memorable speech addressed by the Emperor to Baron Hubner on the first day of the new year-the signal for alarm throughout Europe and for hope in Italy. Still Cavour believed that war would be deferred.

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