martine and his Government, who had betrayed her to Austria, and had sought to place the shame on England, fell after a glorious resistance, giving an example of noble sacrifice which alone casts any lustre upon the history of that unhappy period. Tuscany, wearied by a state of uncertainty, and alarmed at the prospect of invasion, invited the Grand Duke to return. Men of moderate opinions throughout Italy had long separated themselves from the extreme party represented by Mazzini and his colleagues. They had held aloof from all share in the events of this year of revolution. This is a fact which has too often been lost sight of. It furnishes, however, the key to much that has since taken place. It was Ricasoli and the leaders of the constitutional party who recalled the Grand Ducal family to Tuscany. Even Gioberti himself proposed that the Pope should be invited back to Rome.

It was an immense advantage to the restored princes to have been thus brought back by the most intelligent and moderate of their subjects. It rested chiefly with them to render the reconciliation permanent. The occasion was lost through distrust and fear of those they governed (not an unusual accompaniment of restorations), and a reckless disregard of their rights and feelings. A moderate, conciliatory, and just policy might at that moment have united princes and peoples. All that the wisest and most influential men in Italy asked was a federal union of the different states in the Peninsula upon a liberal and constitutional basis, from which even the House of Austria was not to be excluded. But concession was obstinately refused. The Italian states, again brought under the direct influence of Austria, were governed in a jealous and severe spirit, some of them with a cruelty which roused the indignation of Europe. In their bitter disappointment the hopes of the Italians were turned to Piedmont, and that kingdom necessarily became the rallying-point for Italian freedom; so that the position which she has since held was made for, and not by, her.

Cavour was re-elected a member of the Chambers in December, 1849. His foresight, and the justness of his views during the lamentable crisis through which the country had just passed, had now been fully recognised. The place which he accordingly held in public estimation, and the confidence *reposed in him, rendered him peculiarly fitted to lead the constitutional party in Italy. In Piedmont alone could that party gather strength and influence; everywhere else it had been confounded and crushed with the democrats and republicans. The unfortunate Charles Albert had been succeeded by a young King who was willing to govern as a constitutional monarch,

and

and who has since justified the trust placed in him. Even most of the republican leaders now saw that the sole hope of freedom for Italy rested in this constitutional party, and they determined to renounce their own views and to rally round it. Manin, the most virtuous, disinterested, and nobleminded of these men, after a visit to England, wrote his celebrated letter calling upon the republicans of all parts of Italy to give their entire support to Piedmont. Mazzini alone, pursuing his dark and mischievous plots and intrigues, preferred his selfish ends to the welfare and happiness of his country; but his followers had been so much discouraged, that his party was almost extinct, except where blind and cruel acts of despotism gave it temporary strength.

Cavour's popularity was soon increased by his vigorous and able support of the Siccardi law, abolishing ecclesiastical jurisdiction. He succeeded on this occasion in uniting the moderate men of all parties in the Chambers, and in forming that Parliamentary majority which enabled him subsequently to carry out his own policy. On the death of Santa Rosa (October 11, 1850), he was named his successor as Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. Soon afterwards he was, in addition, charged with the Department of Marine. One of his first acts was to call upon the syndics of the various provinces to abolish the local taxes upon bread, a measure which was received with general favour. Notwithstanding the difficulties with which he had to contend in the political and financial condition of the country, he lost no time in putting into practice those principles of free-trade which he had so long adopted, and of the truth of which he had so earnest a conviction, To this end he concluded treaties of commerce with England, Belgium, and other European Powers. His views met with determined opposition from both the retrograde and the extreme democratic sides of the Chambers. His desire to establish close and intimate relations with England was especially condemned as opposed to the traditional policy of Piedmont. The attacks upon him by the Protectionist party were at one time so violent that they led to a duel; not an uncommon end at that period to a Parliamentary contest. His adversary was the challenger. They fought with pistols at twenty-five paces, each combatant being allowed to advance five. Neither was hit after the first fire, and the quarrel was made up. Cavour behaved with great courage and with his usual calmness. Immediately before the duel he had made a long and excellent speech in the Chambers.

His Treaty of Navigation and Commerce with France was particularly obnoxious to the Savoyard members, who loudly de

manded

manded protection for their wines and other articles of native produce. Cavour refuted their objections in a masterly speech, delivered on the 8th and 9th April, 1852, which showed his intimate knowledge of the subject of free-trade, and his perfect acquaintance with the resources of his country. It was spoken in French, as especially addressed to the Savoyards. A translation of it appeared soon after in England,* with an introduction, contributed by Cavour himself, in which he entered with great detail into the finances and taxation of Piedmont, and pointed out the changes he had already made, and those he had in contemplation. He shows how he had begun a radical reform of the customs tariff. The treaty with Belgium had reduced the duties affecting those branches of industry which had previously enjoyed the highest protection, such as threads and stuffs, woollen fabrics and iron; and other treaties with England, France, the Zollverein, Switzerland, Holland, and Austria had abolished almost all differential duties.

Cavour had long been revolving in his mind his great scheme for transferring the naval arsenal of Piedmont to the Gulf of Spezzia, and of rendering the harbour of Genoa worthy of the growing commerce of the country. As soon as he was Minister of Marine he entered with his usual eagerness into the preliminary inquiries. Municipal jealousies and political partyspirit ran so high in Genoa that they threatened for some time to thwart his project. He was even unable to obtain a dispassionate opinion upon the nature of the works required, and of their practicability. In his difficulty he had recourse to Mr. Brockedon, who prevailed upon Mr. Rendel, the wellknown engineer, to visit Genoa, and to make a report upon the capabilities of the harbour and the works necessary for its improvement. Cavour in a characteristic letter dwells upon the confidence he places in the independent and trustworthy nature of an Englishman, points out the importance of Genoa to England as a commercial port in the Mediterranean, and warns us that Marseilles is not in the hands of our best friends.'

He was now the recognised leader of the majority in the Chambers. He had soon shown himself the only man capable of directing their deliberations by his tact, his knowledge of the principles of constitutional government, and his acquaintance with the forms of Parliamentary procedure. However, a difference of opinion with his colleagues, in opposition to whom he had succeeded in persuading the Chambers to elect Ratazzi as their president, led to the resignation of the Ministry, which was

* By R. H. Major, of the British Museum. Pickering, 1852.

reconstructed

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