Count Cavour

“ 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. ”

“ Cavour proposed the health of the guest of the evening at the Cobden banquet at Turin, but almost immediately after, he retired to Leri, as he did not wish it to appear that he meant to embark on public life while the existing political dead-lock lasted. There was only room for conspirators or for those who extended toleration to the régime in force. It is doubtful if anything would have driven Cavour to conspiracy against his own king, and he would have considered it a personal disgrace to be mixed up with the men then in power. ”

“ It should be added that Cavour could not understand a country life which did not embrace solicitude for the worker. The true agriculturist gained the confidence of the poor around him; it was, he said, so easy to gain it. He was kindly, thoughtful, and just in his treatment of his dependents, and he always retained his hold on their affections; when Italy was asking what she should do without her great statesman, the sorrowing peasants of Leri asked in tears what they should do without their master? ”

“ Although the new king was obliged to conclude peace with Austria and the Italian revolution was crushed, Cavour nevertheless did not despair; he believed that so long as the constitution was maintained in Piedmont, the Italian cause was safe. There were fresh elections in July, and this time Cavour was returned. He was still in the difficult position of a moderate Liberal at a time when there seemed to be room for none but reactionaries and conspirators, but by his consummate ability he convinced men that his attitude was the right one, and he made it triumph. ”

“ A point which is worth observing is that, as minister, no one ever made less use of what may he called the influence of society than Cavour. He never tried to make himself agreeable at Turin, least of all to the king. For a long time he was considered haughty by those who did not know him, and arbitrary by those who did. But abroad he underwent a change which probably came about from his revealing not less but more of his natural self. "He has that petulance," Massimo d'Azeglio said, "which is exactly what they like in Paris." ”

“ A few days after his arrival in Paris he was informed that the Emperor, in concert with England, conceded the point as to placing the representative of Sardinia on the same footing as the others. Though it does not seem to have struck Cavour, the sudden change of intention was evidently an involuntary tribute to himself: how could such a man be treated as an inferior? Only the form was won; the substance remained in doubt. Lord Clarendon hinted to the Piedmontese plenipotentiary that he had "too much tact" to mix in discussions which did not concern him. But Cavour was not discouraged. ”

“ When he had to do with men born of the people, he instinctively treated them on a perfect equality, not a common trait, if the truth were told. In August 1856 an event took place which had far-reaching consequences: the first interview between Cavour and Garibaldi. Cavour was one of Garibaldi's earliest admirers; he applauded his exploits at Montevideo and at Rome, when the old Piedmontese party tried to belittle him and obliged Charles Albert to decline his services. In one way the hero was a man after the minister's own heart: he was absolutely practical ”

“ Abroad he could give this quality freer play than in Italy, where vivacity offends in a serious man. He charmed even those who did not share his opinions. At a dinner given by the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris to all the members of the Congress, he sat next to the Abbé Darboy, one day to succeed to the see and meet a martyr's death in the Commune. The Abbé never forgot his neighbour of that evening, and in 1870, at Rome during the Oecumenical Council, when some one mentioned Cavour's name, he exclaimed, throwing up his hands, "Ah, that was a man in a thousand! ”

“ Aurelio Saffi well said that "in these supreme moments you would have called Cavour a follower of Mazzini." The world often thinks that a man is changed when he is revealing what he really is for the first time. It suited Cavour's purpose to appear cool and calculating, but patriotism was as much a passion with him as with any of the great men who worked for Italian emancipation.
CHAPTER X SAVOY AND NICE The dissolution of Parliament by Lord Derby in June led to the return of a Liberal majority and the resumption of power by men who were open advocates of Italian unity. ”

“ D'Azeglio, harassed on all sides and ill through the reopening of his wound, resigned office, and advised the king to send for Cavour. "The other one, whom you know, is diabolically active, and fit in body and soul, and then, he enjoys it so much!" he wrote to a friend, with the pathetic wonder of the artist, romancist, and grand seigneur, who had never been able to make out what there was to enjoy in politics. Victor Emmanuel followed his advice, but he allowed Cavour to see that he hoped that the new ministry would make up the quarrel with Rome. ”

“ Cavour would never have been a Chauvinist, but he was not by nature a believer in neutrality. He was constitutionally inclined to think that in all serious contingencies to act is safer than not to act. The world is divided between men of this mould and their opposites. La Marmora told him that the army, which had made incredible progress considering the state in which it was a short time before, could place in the field a force for which no country would have reason to blush. If not a great general, the Piedmontese Minister of War might fairly be called a first-class organiser. ”

“ In addition to Garibaldi's general and constant dissent from the moderate policy of Cavour, the former was displeased that his soldiers had not been rewarded with higher positions in the Sardinian army than it was practicable or safe to grant to them. Cavour believed that society was on the march towards democracy, but that no republic, at the present, in Italy could be stable. Cavour had his heart set on gaining Rome for the capital of the kingdom, and on establishing "a free church in a free state." ”

“ He was encouraged to it by General La Marmora, the friend of both, who declared that "Camillo was a gran buon diavolo," who would grow more moderate when "with us." Cavour accepted the offered post of Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, but not without making terms. He exacted the retirement of a minister whom he considered incurably timorous, especially in ecclesiastical legislation. The point was yielded, but D'Azeglio said to La Marmora, "We are beginning badly with your buon diavolo." The good Massimo got no comfort from the king: "Don't you see that this man will turn you all out?" ”

“ The date was just before Cavour's departure on a first visit to Paris. "Did you remark," said Mme. Victoire, "how indifferent Camille seemed when I spoke to him of the Paris theatres? I really do not know what will interest him on his travels; the poor boy is entirely absorbed in revolutions." "It is quite true," replied Mme. Henriette; "Camille has no curiosity about things, he cares for nothing but politics." And the two ladies went on to draw melancholy prognostics from their nephew's study of political economy, "an erroneous and absolutely useless science." ”

“ 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 Berchet, the poet. ”

“ It was in the exposition of these principles, in the enforcement of the common moral interest of Italian nationality and the Catholic Church, that Cavour gave his last counsels to the Italian Parliament. He was not himself to lead the nation farther towards the Promised Land. The immense exertions which he had maintained during the last three years, the indignation and anxiety caused to him by Garibaldi's attacks, produced an illness which Cavour's own careless habits of life and the unskilfulness of his doctors rendered fatal. ”

“ Though Cavour has been often said to have lacked imagination, it needed the imaginative faculty to discern what would be the true value of the free corps which he decided to constitute under the name of the Hunters of the Alps. With a promise of 200,000 Frenchmen in his pocket, he was yet ready to confront difficulties which he afterwards called "immense," in order to place in the field a few thousand volunteers of whom the heads of the army declared that they would only prove an embarrassment. Cavour listened to no one. ”

“ 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 solide et au présent et parler ensuite des chimères agréables." This was the only rule which Victor Emmanuel's minister could observe with any profit to his country at Plombières. As he wrote himself, "In politics one can only do one thing at a time, and the only thing we have to think of is how to get the Austrians out of Italy." ”

“ 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 rarely made a man's antecedents a reason for not turning him to account; but there was one point on which he required to be reassured before seeking an understanding with Rattazzi—this was whether his fidelity to the monarchy could be entirely depended on. Cavour's old friend and fellow worker of the Risorgimento, M.A. Castelli, who was acquainted with the leader of the Left, opportunely bore witness to Rattazzi's genuine loyalty, and Cavour hesitated no longer to come to an agreement which every day proved to be more imperative. ”

“ To no man of intelligence need I say that Del Ferice had no more affinity with Massimo D'Azeglio, with the great Cavour, with Cavour's great enemy Giuseppe Mazzini, or with Garibaldi, than the jackal has with the lion. Del Ferice represented the scum which remained after the revolution of 1848 had subsided. He was one of those men who were used and despised by their betters, and in using whom Cavour himself was provoked into writing "Se noi facessimo per noi quel che faciamo per l'Italia, saremmo gran bricconi"—if we did for ourselves what we do for Italy, we should be great blackguards. ”

“ He once said that he found it easier to make Italy than a sonnet. In his own case he regretted never having become a ready writer, because he knew that the pen is a force; he held that a man should cultivate every means at his disposal to increase his power.
In 1824, when Charles Albert returned to Piedmont after three years' exile in consequence of the part he was suspected of having taken in the abortive revolution of 1821, one of his first acts was to obtain a nomination for young Cavour as page in the royal household. ”

“ Of this d'Azeglio disapproved, and therefore resigned office, but on the king's request he formed a new ministry, excluding both Cavour and Farini. In October, however, owing to ill-health and dissatisfaction with some of his colleagues, as well as for other reasons not quite clear, he resigned once more and retired into private life, suggesting Cavour to the king as his successor.
For the next four years he lived modestly at Turin, devoting himself once more to art, although he also continued to take an active interest in politics, Cavour always consulting him on matters of moment. ”

“ The dictator bombarded the king's Government with advice, to which Cavour alludes without irritation: "He writes and rewrites, and telegraphs night and day, urging us with counsels, warnings, reproaches—I might almost say menaces." Garibaldi, he goes on to say, has a generous character, poetic instincts, but his is an untamed nature, on which certain impressions leave ineffaceable traces; he feels the cession of Nice as a personal injury, and he will never forgive it. The king has a certain influence over him, but it would be madness to seek to employ it in favour of the Ministry ”