An unwary minister would have taken up the ball and thrown it back. Cavour's presence of mind prompted him to leave it where it lay. He did not say, "No, we are not working for Italian unity; no, we do not wish to overthrow the Pope." He answered that in speaking 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 Solaro de la Margherita had tried to draw him. But, he said, he would avail himself of the privilege generally conceded to the ministers of a constitutional government when questions were still pending—to defer his reply till the case was closed (a guerra finita).



CHAPTER VII

THE CONGRESS OF PARIS

With the foreboding that this would be the last act of his political life, Cavour started on the mission which he had almost no choice but to assume, in spite of his extreme repugnance for the role of diplomatist. 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. With his usual quick rebound he was soon thoroughly braced up to the work before him. As he began to see his way, he was rather spurred on than disconcerted by the chorus of dismal predictions which the Congress and his own part in it evoked at home. Almost every notable man in Piedmont contributed his quota of melancholy vaticination, in which the note, "I told you so!" was already audible. Who could plead Italy's cause in a congress in which Austria had a voice? Was there ever such midsummer madness? "But we knew how it would be from the first."

Cavour had said that he hated playing at diplomacy; but some of his smaller, as well as larger gifts, marked him out as a successful diplomatist. He was watchful for little advantages. All who could help the cause were enlisted in its service. Thus he made a convert of a fair Countess, to whose charms Napoleon III was supposed not to be insensible. Paris was full of notabilities whom he sought to turn into useful allies. In a letter to the Marquis Emanuel d'Azeglio (the Sardinian Minister in London) he tells how he even "made up" to Lady Holland's dog with such success that he got it to put its large paws on his new coat! When the Marchioness of Ely arrived to be present on the part of the Queen at the birth of the Prince Imperial, Cavour, knowing her to be the Queen's intimate correspondent, lost no time in paying his court to her; but in this instance an acquaintance begun from political motives ripened into real friendship on both sides. 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." 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 Abbe Darboy, one day to succeed to the see and meet a martyr's death in the Commune. The Abbe 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! He had not the slightest sentiment of hate in his heart."

In the two months which Cavour spent in Paris he perceived very clearly that Walewski and the other French ministers would have to be reckoned more as opponents than friends in the future development of affairs. He found, however, two men who could be trusted to continue his work by incessantly pushing Napoleon III. in an Italian direction; one was Prince Napoleon, the other, Dr. Conneau, a person entirely in the Imperial confidence. Henceforth Dr. Conneau was the secret, and for a long time quite unsuspected, intermediary between Cavour and the Emperor. The idea of establishing this channel of communication first occurred to Count Arese, whose own influence at the Tuileries, though exercised with prudent reserve, was of no slight importance. This Milanese nobleman personified, as it were all the proud hatred of the Lombard aristocracy for an alien yoke. The truest and most disinterested friend of Queen Hortense, Arese remained faithfully attached to her son in good and evil fortune. He would never turn the friendship to account for himself. When Napoleon offered to ask as a personal favour for the removal of the sequestration on his family property, he answered that he preferred to take his chance with the rest. He won the lasting regard of the Empress, though she knew that he influenced Napoleon in a sense contrary to her own political sympathies. The visits of this high-minded gentleman and devoted friend were as welcome at a court crowded with self-seekers and charlatans as they were to be later in the solitude of Chislehurst. Arese was in Paris during the Congress, having been chosen by the king, at Cavour's urgent request, to carry his congratulations to the Emperor on the birth of the Prince Imperial.

At the earlier sittings of the Congress, Cavour kept in the background; his instinct as a man of the world, and that mixture of astuteness and simplicity which he shared with many of his countrymen (even those of no education), guided him in filling a difficult and, in some respects, an embarrassing position. He spoke, when he did speak, in as brief terms as could serve to express his opinion. But this modest attitude only threw into relief his inalienable superiority. He cast about the shadow of future greatness. The representative of the second-rate Power, who sat there only by favour, was to make so much more history than any of his colleagues! Curiously enough the only one of the plenipotentiaries who had a prior acquaintance with Cavour was the Austrian, Count Buol, who was formerly ambassador at Turin. In old days, before 1848, he had played whist with him. "I know M. de Cavour," he said; "I am afraid he will give us de fil a retordre." Cavour carefully avoided, however, unnecessary friction. Loyal to both the allies, he managed to steer between their not always consonant aims while preserving his own independence, by taking what seemed, on the whole, the most liberal side in debated questions. With Count Buol he maintained courteous if formal relations, and he soon made a thorough conquest of Count Orloff, who did not begin by being prepossessed in favour of the minister who alone had caused the Sardinian attack on Russia, but who ended on far better terms with him than with his Austrian colleague, of whom he said to Cavour in a voice meant to be heard, "Count Buol talks exactly as if Austria had taken Sebastopol!"

With regard to Cavour's real business, the fate of Italy, he was obliged to proceed with a restraint which few men would have had the self-control to observe. This was what had been predicted; how, in fact, putting aside Austria, could an Italian patriot speak freely of nationality, of alien dominion, of the rights of peoples, in an assembly of old diplomatists, conservative by the nature of their profession and religiously in awe of treaties by the responsibility of their office? It was only just before the signature of peace that Cavour cautiously launched his bolt in the shape of a note on the situation of affairs in Italy, addressed to the English and French plenipotentiaries. It was conceived on the same lines as the letter to Walewski: the Austrian occupation of the Roman Legations was again made a sort of test question, to which particular weight was attached. One reason why Cavour dwelt so much on this point was that the occupation could be assailed on legal grounds, leaving nationality alone. As, moreover, it was admitted that the Papal Government would fall in Romagna were the Austrians withdrawn, the principle of the destruction of the temporal power of the Pope would be granted from the moment that their departure was declared expedient. While D'Azeglio thought that the separation of Romagna from the States of the Church would be "positively mischievous," Cavour looked upon it in the light of the first step to far greater changes. Many other schemes were floating in his brain for which he worked feverishly in private, though he did not venture to support them officially. The object nearest his heart was the union or rather reunion of Parma and Modena with Piedmont, to which those duchies had annexed themselves spontaneously in 1848. In order to get rid of the Duke of Modena and Duchess of Parma with the consent of Europe, Cavour was desperately anxious to find them—other situations. Every throne that was or could be made vacant was reviewed in turn; Greece, Wallachia, and Moldavia, anywhere out of Italy would do; the Duchess, not a very youthful widow, was to marry this or that prince to obligingly facilitate matters:—abortive projects, which seem absurd now, but Cavour was willing to try everything to gain anything. In weaving these plans Cavour employed the energy of which Prince Napoleon complained that he did not show enough in the Congress, though to have shown more would have led to a rebuff, or, perhaps, to enforced retirement. Still there was one point which, in the Congress, as out of it, he never treated with moderation: this was the sequestration of Lombard estates. When Count Buol spoke of an amnesty including nearly all cases, he replied that he would not renew diplomatic relations with Vienna while one exception remained. In an audience with the Emperor, after Walewski had ingeniously tried to excuse Austria for exercising her "rights" over her ex-subjects, Cavour burst out with the declaration that if he had 150,000 men at his disposal he would make it a casus belli with Austria that very day.

Peace was signed on March 30. A supplementary sitting was held on April 8, when the President, Count Walewski, by express order of the Emperor, and to the astonishment of all present, proposed for discussion the French and Austrian occupations of the Roman States and the conduct of the king of Naples (his own favourite monarch) as likely to provoke grave complications and to compromise the peace of Europe. This was a victory for Cavour, as it was the direct result of his "note," but he was afraid that the discussion of the Roman question would be kept within the narrowest limits in consequence of its affecting France as well as Austria. Walewski wished so to limit it; he was embarrassed by the analogy of the French in Rome, and by the fear of saying something unflattering of the Pope. But Napoleon would not have risked the discussion at all had he shared his minister's sensitiveness. The truth was, that he was always looking out for an excuse which would serve with the clerical party in France for recalling his troops from Rome. He was thinking then of withdrawing them so as to oblige Austria to withdraw her forces from the Legations. It does not appear that Cavour guessed this. In his own speech he glided over the presence of the French, in Rome as lightly as he could, merely saying that his Government "desired" the complete evacuation of the Roman States; but his reserve was not imitated by Lord Clarendon, nor could Napoleon have expected that it would be. When some one asked Lord Palmerston for a definition of the difference between "occupation" and "business," he answered on the spur of the moment—"There is a French occupation of Rome, but they have no business there;" and this witticism correctly represented English opinion on the subject. It was natural, therefore, that the British plenipotentiary should make no distinction between the French in Rome and the Austrians at Bologna: he denounced both occupations as equally to be condemned and equally calculated to disturb the balance of power, but at the root of the matter was the abominable misgovernment, which made it impossible to leave the Pope to his subjects without fear of revolution. The papal administration was the opprobrium of Europe. As to the king of Naples, if he did not soon mend his ways and listen to the advice of the Powers, it would become their duty to enforce it by arguments of a kind which he could not refuse to obey. An extraordinary sensation was created by the speech of which this is a bald summary; it might have been spoken, Cavour said, "by an Italian radical," and the vehemence with which it was delivered doubled its effect. Lord Clarendon, who, at the beginning of the Congress, was nervous as to what Cavour might do, had been worked up to such a pitch of indignation by the private conversations of his outwardly discreet colleague that he himself threw diplomatic reserve to the winds. Walewski, dreadfully uncomfortable about the Pope, tried to bring the discussion back within politer bounds; Buol was stiffly indignant; Orloff, indifferent about the Pope, was on tenter-hooks as to Russia's friend, the king of Naples; the Prussian plenipotentiary said that he had no instructions; the Grand Vizier was the only person who remained quite calm. Cavour's concluding speech was dignified and prudent; his real comment on the proceedings was the remark which he made to every one after the sitting was over: "You see there is only one solution—the cannon!"

On April 11 he called on Lord Clarendon with the intention of driving home this inference. Two things, he said, resulted from what had passed: firstly, that Austria was resolved to make no concession; secondly, that Italy had nothing to expect from diplomacy. This being so, the position of Sardinia became extremely difficult: either she must make it up with the Pope and with Austria, or she must prepare, with prudence, for war with Austria. In the first alternative he should retire, to make place for the retrogrades; in the second he wished to be sure that his views were not in opposition to those of "our best ally," England. Lord Clarendon "furiously caressed his chin," but he seemed by no means surprised "You are perfectly right," he said, "only it must not be talked about." Cavour then said that war did not alarm him, and, when once begun, they were determined that it should be to the knife (using the English phrase); he added that, however short a time it lasted, England would be obliged to help them. Lord Clarendon, taking his hand from his chin, replied, "Certainly, with all our hearts."

When, after Cavour's death, the text of this conversation was printed, Lord Clarendon denied in the House of Lords having ever encouraged Piedmont to go to war with Austria. Nevertheless, it is impossible that Cavour, who wrote his account of the interview directly after it occurred, could have been mistaken about the words which may well have escaped from the memory of the speaker in an interval of six years. With regard to the sense, the sequel proved that Lord Clarendon did not attach the official value to what he said which, for a moment, Cavour hoped to find in it. Lord Clarendon's speech before the Congress gives evidence of a state of mind wrought to the utmost excitement by the tale of Italy's sufferings, and it is not surprising if, speaking as a private individual, he used still stronger expressions of sympathy. Nor is it surprising that Cavour attributed more weight to these expressions than they merited. Up till now, he had never counted on more than moral support from England; he admitted to himself that the English alliance, which he would have infinitely preferred to any other, was a dream. But the thought now flashed on him that it might become a reality. He decided to pay a short visit to England, which was useful, because it dispelled illusions, always dangerous in politics. In the damp air of the Thames, Lord Clarendon seemed no longer the same enthusiast, and Lord Palmerston pleaded the excuse of a domestic affliction for seeing very little of Cavour. The Queen was kind as ever, but the momentary hope conceived in Paris vanished. One after-consequence of this visit was Lord Lyndhurst's motion, which nearly caused an estrangement between the British and Sardinian Governments. Cavour had taken too literally the assurance that on the subject of Italy there was no division of parties. The warmly Italian speech of the veteran conservative statesman which had been inspired by him was not meant to embarrass the ministry, but that was its effect, and it was natural that they should feel some resentment. Fortunately the cloud soon passed away, and if Cavour imagined to gain anything from flirtations with the Tory party he was undeceived by the violently pro-Austrian speech delivered by Mr. Disraeli in July. The sincere goodwill of individuals such as Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Stanhope (who invented the phrase "Italy for the Italians," so often repeated later) did not represent the then prevailing sentiment of the party as a whole.

Cavour returned to Turin without bringing, as Massimo d'Azeglio expressed it, "even the smallest duchy in his pocket"; yet satisfied with his work, for he rightly judged that, though there was no material gain, the moral victory was complete. The recalcitration of Austria, which had reached the point of threatening war if Parma were joined to Piedmont, contained the germs of her dissolution as an Italian power. The temporal power of the Pope had been called in question for the first time, not in the lodge of a secret society, but in the council chamber of Europe. Beaten on the lower plane, Cavour had won on the higher; checked as a Piedmontese, he was triumphant as an Italian. In spite of the approval voted by both Houses of Parliament, some shade of disappointment existed in Piedmont, but throughout Italy there was exultation. The Tuscan patriots sent the statesman a bust of himself, with the happily chosen inscription: "Colui che la difese a viso aperto."[1]

[Footnote 1: "He who defended her with open face" (Dante).]

The position of Piedmont after the Congress of Paris was one to which it would be difficult to find a parallel. States are commonly at peace or at war; if at peace, even where there are smouldering enmities, an appearance is kept up of mutual toleration. But in Piedmont the king, government, and people were already morally at war with Austria. When Cavour said in the Chamber that the two months during which he sat side by side with the Austrian plenipotentiaries had left in his mind no personal animus against them, as he was glad to admit their generally courteous conduct, but the most intimate conviction that any understanding between the two countries was unattainable, he was certainly aware of the grave significance of his words. Great solutions were not the work of the pen, and diplomacy was powerless to change the fate of peoples: these were the conclusions which he brought away from Congress. Every one knew that they meant war. Except for the order for marching, the truce imposed by Novara was broken. Those who had been edified by Cavour's cautious language in Paris stood aghast. It was well enough that Piedmont should protest in a calm, academic way, but protest was now abandoned for defiance. The change was the more unwelcome, because both in France and England the pendulum of the clock was swinging towards Austria. Napoleon disliked to commit himself to any policy, and after seeming to adopt one side he invariably swayed to the other. There was not the same intentional inconsistency in England, but the fact that Austria was undergoing a detachment from Russia improved her relations with England. Lord Palmerston suspected Cavour of being too friendly with Russia. In addition to this, there was a real fear in England lest Piedmont should pay dearly for what was considered its rashness. The British Government put the question to Cavour, whether it would not be better to disarm the opposition of Austria by depriving her of every plausible reason for combating the policy of Piedmont? He replied that only Count Solaro de la Margherita and his friends could live on amicable terms with the oppressors of Italy; England was at liberty to renew her old alliance with Austria if she chose, but upon that ground he could not follow her; Lord Palmerston might end where Lord Castlereagh began, but they would remain faithful to their principles whatever happened.

Two causes tended to prolong a coldness that was new in the intercourse between England and Piedmont. One was the frontier question of Bolgrad, in which, however, Cavour finally acted as mediator, his suggestion being accepted both by the English and the Russian Governments. The other was the Cagliari affair: the Cagliari, a Sardinian merchant ship, which carried the ill-fated expedition of Pisacane to Sapri, was captured by the Neapolitan Government, and the crew, two of whom were English, were taken in chains to Salerno. At first the English Foreign Office seemed inclined to back up an energetic demand for restitution, but afterwards it deprecated strong measures, and left Sardinia somewhat in the lurch. Circumstances combined, therefore, to render Cavour isolated, but he understood that this was a reason to advance, not to retreat. Had Sardinia seemed to bend to the peaceable advice of her friends abroad, her ascendency in Italy would have been gone for ever. Cavour drilled the army, and drew nearer to those great popular forces that were destined to make Italy, which could be freed, but never regenerated, by the sword. Piedmontese statesmen had always looked askance at these forces; Cavour was becoming fully alive to the vast motive power they would place in the hands of the man who could command them, and whom they could not command. He was free from the caste prejudices which caused many even good patriots of that date to hold the masses in horror. If he had prejudices they were against the men of his own order. Once, in summing up the results of an unsatisfactory general election, he wrote: "A dozen marquises, two dozen counts, without reckoning barons and cavalieri—it was enough to drive one mad!" 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; he might be obstinate or rash, but he was no doctrinaire. Cavour never changed his opinion of people, and even after the General became his enemy he still admired and esteemed him. In 1856 he received him with flattering courtesy, the first recognition he had met with from any person in authority in his own state, from which, after 1849, he had been, not exactly banished, but invited to depart. During the same autumn Cavour began to see much of Giuseppe La Farina, a Sicilian exile, who was intimately connected with the new party, which, despairing alike of the existing governments and of the republic, took for its watchword, "Italy under Victor Emmanuel." In the first instance, La Farina was commissioned to ask Cavour to explain his views. His answer was perfectly frank. He had faith, he said, in the ultimate union of Italy in one state, with Rome for its capital; but he was not sufficiently acquainted with the other provinces to know whether the country was ripe for so great a transformation. He was minister of the king of Sardinia, and he could not and ought not to do anything which would compromise the dynasty. If the Italians were really ready for unity, he had the hope that the opportunity of getting it would not be very long delayed; meanwhile, as not one of his political friends believed in its possibility, the cause would only be injured were it known that he had direct dealings with the men who were working for it. He was willing to receive La Farina whenever he liked, but on the understanding that he came in the morning before it was light, and that, if Parliament or diplomacy got wind of their relations, he should reply that he knew nothing about him. The interviews took place almost daily for four years, without any one knowing of them. Some hours before dawn La Farina ascended the narrow secret staircase which led directly to Cavour's bedroom, and he was gone when the city awakened. In spite of the almost melodramatic complexion of these secret meetings, it must not be supposed, as some have supposed, that Cavour pulled the wires of all the conspiracies in Italy. His visitor kept him informed of the progress made, the propaganda carried on, but he rarely interfered. He still thought that his own business was to make Piedmont an object-lesson in constitutional monarchy, and to get the Austrians out of Italy. That done, the country, left to itself, must decide whether it would unite or not.

After the Congress of Paris, Cavour took the Foreign Office in addition to the Ministry of Finance. He could not trust either of these departments to other hands; and the country approved, for the conviction gained ground that, whether he was mad or not, only he could extricate it from the situation into which he had drawn it. When one senator called him a dictator, he retorted that, if Parliament refused him its support, he should go away, which was not the habit of dictators. But the mere threat of resignation brought the most recalcitrant to reason. Thus he continued to obtain large sums to carry out the works he deemed necessary, one of the greatest of which was the transfer of the arsenal from Genoa to Spezia—a step which angered the Genoese on one side, and on the other the old conservatives, who asked what had little Piedmont to do with big fleets? "But the fact was," Count Solaro said with a sneer, "the Prime Minister had all Italy in view, and was preparing for the future kingdom." Cavour also forced Parliament to vote the supplies required for undertaking the boring of Mont Cenis, which most of the deputies expected would be a total failure. In proposing this vote he declared that they must advance or perish. He was delighted with a phrase with which Lord Palmerston concluded a congratulatory letter sent to the Sardinian legation in London, and written in elegant Italian: "Henceforth no one will talk of the works of the ancient Romans." This little episode wiped out the last traces of misunderstanding between the two statesmen, who became again what fate had meant them to be, friends and fellow-workers. Cavour's budgets had the inherent defect that they continued to show increased expenditure and a deficit, but no minister who had lacked the power and the courage to brave criticism by a financial policy which would have been certainly indefensible if Piedmont alone was concerned, could have done what he did. Meanwhile, on the whole, the economic state of the country improved in spite of heavy taxation: the exports and imports increased; there were signs of industrial activity; agriculture revived. Cavour was often bitterly blamed for favouring and sparing the landowning class, though whether he did this because he had estates at Leri, as his detractors alleged, or because agriculture must always be the most vital of all Italian interests, need not be discussed now. Improved education stimulated enterprise. That there was room for improvement may be supposed, when it is known that in 1848 the number of persons who could not read was three to one to the number of those who could.

The most severe phase in the financial difficulties was past when, at the beginning of 1858, Cavour consigned the exchequer to Lanza, assuming himself the Ministry of the Interior, which was vacant through the resignation of Rattazzi. The breach between the two men, who were never in entire intellectual harmony, had been growing inevitable for some months. It was final; Cavour resolved never again to have Rattazzi for a colleague. The elections of the autumn before, which Cavour thought that Rattazzi had mismanaged, lessened his confidence in him; but the actual cause of their rupture was briefly this. Cavour wished to put an end to the king's relations with the Countess Mirafiori, whom he married by the rite of the Church during his serious illness near Pisa in 1868—an interference in the private affairs of the sovereign which, though inspired by regard for the decorum of the Crown, must be admitted to have been unwise, as (amongst other reasons) it was certain not to attain its object. In this matter Cavour thought that Rattazzi ought to have stood by him, instead of which he took the part of the deeply offended king, who went so far as to say that only his position and his duty to the country prevented him from challenging his prime minister then and there.



CHAPTER VIII

THE PACT OF PLOMBIERES

Time seems long to those who wait. The thrill of expectancy that passed through Italy after the Congress of Paris was succeeded by the nervous tension that seizes people whose ears are 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 Austrians made as impossible as their careless belief in their own invulnerability had made it possible in 1848. The years went by, and help from without appeared farther off than ever. Meanwhile every interest suffered, and life was rendered wellnigh intolerable by the ceaseless antagonism between government and governed. This was the state of things when the Archduke Maximilian came to Milan full of genuine love for the Emperor's Italian subjects and of determination to right their wrongs. "I much admire M. de Cavour," he said to a Prussian diplomatist, "but when it is a question of a policy of progress, I am not going 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 entirely fail in its effect with a population which was beginning to be hopeless. Cavour viewed the experiment not without anxiety, but he guessed that the good intentions of Maximilian would be frustrated by the Viennese Government. The forecast was verified, but meanwhile the simple fact that an Austrian archduke had set his heart on winning the affections of the Lombards and Venetians was taken everywhere as a sign favourable to peace.

Then happened the unforeseen event which marks with almost unfailing regularity the turning points in history. On January 14, 1858, Felice Orsini tried to assassinate Napoleon III and failed. His failure was strange. The bomb thrown under the carriage which conveyed the Emperor and Empress to the opera did not explode. An accomplice was arrested with another in his hand, which he had not time to throw. Many of the passers-by received fatal or serious injuries. Of the previous attempts on Napoleon's life none was prepared with such seeming certainty 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 that this Romagnol revolutionist had written to him nine months before, offering his services to whatever Italian Government, "not the Papacy," would place its army at the disposal of the national independence, and urging the Sardinian ministers to take a daring course, in which they would have all Italy with them. Cavour did not answer the letter, "because it was noble and energetic, and he thought it unbecoming in him to pay Orsini compliments." If he had summoned Orsini to Piedmont, the attempt in the Rue le Peletier would never have taken place.

No one in Europe was more dismayed by the news than Cavour, who expected a harvest of embarrassments for Sardinia, and, worst of all, the permanent ill-will of Napoleon. The first expectation was speedily realised: floods of official and unofficial invective were poured upon the two countries, which were held responsible for nurturing the plot. In England the counter-blast upset Lord Palmerston's Government, and in Piedmont the dynasty itself might have been endangered had not Victor Emmanuel's sense of personal dignity preserved him from bending to the rod of imperial displeasure. Cavour was ready even to forestall the cry for precautionary measures; the air was full of wild rumours, and he thought that Victor Emmanuel's days and his own were threatened, a baseless suspicion, for the most reckless conspirators in those times accounted regicide madness in a free country. But he believed it, and for this reason, as well 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 that, notwithstanding, I desire to be nothing but his friend." Cavour instructed Delia Rocca to "commit the indiscretion" of reading the letter to the Emperor word for word. At the same time he wrote to the Sardinian Minister in Paris "that the king was ready for the last extremity to save the honour and independence of the country, and we with him." But extremities were not needful. Napoleon was always impressed by the true ring of that ancient royalty which was the one thing which he could not purchase. He wrote a conciliatory letter to Victor Emmanuel: "It was only between good friends that questions could be treated with frankness. Let the king do what he could, and not be uneasy." The French Foreign Office went on scolding through the Legation at Turin, till Cavour said, with a smile, to Prince de Latour d'Auvergne, "But it is finished; yesterday the king had a letter from the Emperor which ends the whole affair."

A little while after, Cavour received a private communication from Paris containing Orsini's last letter, and inviting him to publish it in the Official Gazette. It was only then that it began to dawn on him what had been the real effect of the attempt, 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. Among the royal families of Europe, Orsini's influence was at once understood, but it was thought to have its source in fear. It was remarked how, when the sentence of death was passed, the condemned man, turning to his counsel, whispered the words of Tasso—

Risorgero, nemico ognor piu crudo, Cenere anco sepolto e spirto ignudo.

"The Italian dagger," wrote the Prince Regent of Prussia, "has become a fixed idea with Napoleon." Yet it was not only, and perhaps not chiefly, the fear of being assassinated that inclined Napoleon to listen to Orsini's dying prayer, "Free my country, and the blessings of twenty-five million Italians 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 the hotbed of the Carbonari; all his friends belonged to the Society, and it must always be held probable that he belonged to it also. At any rate the memory of those days lent dramatic force to the last appeal of the man who was more willing to go to the scaffold than he was to send him there.

If this view is correct, it follows that when Napoleon talked about an Austrian alliance to enforce his demand for restrictive measures in Piedmont, it was a groundless threat, such as he was always in the habit of using. A month after Orsini's execution, the project of an alliance between France and Sardinia, and of the marriage of the king's daughter with Prince Napoleon, reached Cavour in a mysterious manner, and it is still unknown if it was sent with the Emperor's knowledge, or by some one who had secretly ascertained what he was thinking about. Cavour showed the draft to the king, but he did not place much credence in it. Nevertheless, to keep Napoleon's attention fixed on Italy, he caused him to be informally assured that if the worst came to the worst, Sardinia would go to war with Austria by herself; the situation was already so strained that almost anything would be preferable to its prolongation. Cavour had just induced the Chamber to sanction 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 Plombieres. 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 Plombieres 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 nearly the whole of two days closeted with Napoleon, the decisive interview lasting from 11 A.M. to 3 P.M., after which the Emperor took him out alone, in a carriage driven by himself. During this drive the subject of the Princess Clotilde's marriage was broached. Towards the end of the visit, Napoleon said to him, "Walewski has just telegraphed to me that you are here!" The French ministers were, as usual, kept in the dark. It flattered Napoleon's amour propre to take into secret partnership a man whose place in history he divined. "There are only three men in Europe," he remarked to his guest; "we two, and then a third, whom I will not name." Who was the third? Bismarck was still occupied in sending home advice that was not taken from the Prussian Embassy at St Petersburg. The saying brings to mind another, attributed to the aged Prince Metternich, "There is only one diplomatist in Europe, but unfortunately he is against us; it is M. de Cavour."

In a long letter to the king, Cavour gave a detailed but probably not a complete account of the interviews at Plombieres. It is said that among his papers, which Ricasoli, his successor in the premiership, gave to his heirs, but which they ultimately restored to the State, there is only one sealed packet—that which relates to this visit. He went by no means certain that the Emperor meant to do anything at all; he came away with great hopes, but still without certainty, for his trust in his partner was limited. He never felt sure whether Napoleon was not indulging on a large scale 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 authorised Cavour to agree. The hand of the Princess Clotilde was only to be conceded if it was made a condition of the alliance, which was not the case. Cavour believed, however, that everything depended on gratifying the Emperor's wish, and he strongly urged the king to yield a point which seemed to him of no great importance. Since most princesses made unhappy marriages, what did it matter if Prince Napoleon was a promising bridegroom or not? Victor Emmanuel was persuaded by the "reason of State"; but the sacrifice of his daughter cost him more than Cavour could ever conceive.

Napoleon told his visitor that he felt sure of the benevolent attitude of Russia, and of the neutrality of England and Prussia, but he had no illusions as to the difficulty of the task. The Austrians would be hard to crush, and unless thoroughly crushed they would not relax their hold on Italy. Peace must be imposed at Vienna. To 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 solide et au present et parler ensuite des chimeres agreables." This was the only rule which Victor Emmanuel's minister could observe with any profit to his country at Plombieres. 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."

The period from the meeting with the Emperor of the French to the outbreak of the war was, in the opinion of the present writer, the greatest period in Cavour's life. Patience, temper, forethought, resource, resolution—every quality of a great statesman he exhibited in turn, and above all the supreme gift of making no mistakes. He did not trust in chance or in fate; he trusted entirely in himself. He showed extraordinary ability in compelling the most various and opposing elements to combine in the service of his ends. In spite of Napoleon's promises and of the current of personal sentiment which lay beneath them, he soon foresaw that the 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 other hand, Piedmont would forfeit the sympathies of Europe if it precipitated matters by a declaration of war. The only solution would be if the declaration of war came from Austria; but she would never commit so enormous a blunder. "But I shall force her to declare war against us," Cavour tranquilly replied, and when the incredulous Englishman inquired at what time he expected to bring about this consummation, he answered, "About the first week in May." Mr. Odo Russell wrote down the date in his notebook, and boundless was his surprise when Austria actually declared war a few days in advance of the time prescribed. This is statesmancraft!

Cavour had always said that an English alliance would be the only one without drawbacks. Among these drawbacks he doubtless placed the melancholy necessity of ceding Piedmontese territory; but that was not all. There was a peril which would have appeared to him yet more fatal than the lopping off of a limb, because it threatened the vital organs of national life: the risk of an all-powerful French influence extending over Italy. To ward off this danger it was of the greatest moment that Italians should join in their own liberation—that not only the Government and the army but patriots of every condition should rally round the country's flag. 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. 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'etat; 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 Italy with him. All felt what Massimo d'Azeglio expressed with generous expansion, "To-day it is no longer a question of discussing your policy, but of making it succeed." Cavour had torn open the letter with impatience, recognising the handwriting. When he finished reading it his eyes were full of tears. No one was more whole-hearted in his support of the minister who exacted of him two most bitter sacrifices than the king. "The difficulty," Cavour said, "is to hold him back, not to spur him on." The public, imperfectly informed of what was happening or going to happen, remained calm, for, at last, its faith in the helmsman was complete. An amusing story is told of those times. The Countess von Stackelberg, wife of the Russian minister at Turin, was buying something at a shop under the Porticoes, when the shopman suddenly left her and rushed to the door. On coming back he said with excuses, "I saw Count Cavour passing, and wishing to know how our affairs are going on, I wanted to see how he looked. He looks in good spirits, so everything is going right."

A misunderstanding arose between France and Austria on a question connected with Servia; it was in outward allusion to this that Napoleon said to the Austrian Ambassador at the reception of the Corps Diplomatique on New Year's Day, 1859, "Je regrette que les relations entre nous soient si mauvaises; dites cependant a Votre Souverain que mes sentiments pour lui ne sont pas changes." Whether there was a deliberate intention to convey another meaning is a matter of conjecture; at all events the whole of Europe gave the words an Italian sense, and Cavour, though taken by surprise, was not slow to turn them to account. In writing the speech from the throne for the opening of Parliament, he introduced a paragraph alluding to clouds in the horizon, and eventualities "which they awaited in the firm resolve to fulfil the mission assigned to them by Providence." The other ministers would not share the responsibility of language so charged with electricity. Cavour then did one of those simple things 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 out. Did it savour too much of Mazzini? Victor Emmanuel himself much improved the closing sentence by substituting "cry" for "cries." This was the singularly hybrid manner in which the royal speech of January 10, 1859, arrived at its final form. Much, at this critical juncture, depended on its effect, and nothing is so impossible to foretell as the effect of words spoken before a public assembly. Cavour stood beside the throne watching the impression which each phrase created; when he saw that success was complete, beyond every expectation, he was deeply moved. The ministers of the Italian princedoms could hardly keep their virtuous indignation within bounds. Sir James Hudson called the speech "a rocket falling on the treaties of 1815"; the Russian Minister, waxing poetic, compared it with the shining dawn of a fine spring day. The "grido di dolore," rapturously applauded in the Chamber, rang like a clarion through Italy. And no one suspected whence this ingenious piece of rhetoric emanated!

The French alliance still rested on nothing more substantial than a secret unwritten engagement which Napoleon could repudiate at will. Cavour, who would have made an excellent lawyer, strove his utmost to obtain some more solid bond, for which the marriage-visit of Prince Napoleon offered a favourable opportunity. The connection with one of the oldest royal houses in Europe so flattered the Emperor's vanity that he authorised the bridegroom and General Niel, who accompanied him, to sign a treaty in black and white, binding France to come to the assistance of Piedmont, if that State were the object of an act of aggression on the part of Austria. Possibly, like other people, he thought 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 that Savoy was to go for Lombardy, and Nice for Venetia; others said that Nice was to be the price of the Duchies and Legations. There was a persistent impression that the island of Sardinia was mentioned, which would not merit record but for the general correctness of the other guesses. There is no reference, however, to Sardinia, in the version of the treaty which has since been published, and Cavour indignantly repudiated the idea of ceding this Italian island to France, when the charge of having entertained it was flung at him a year later. Some doubt may linger in the mind as to whether there was not a scheme for giving the Pope Sardinia in return for part or all his territory.

Once again Cavour repeated his demand for yet more money, and this time it was received not, as heretofore, with reluctant submission, but with acclamation. At last people saw what the minister was driving at; only the few who would have disowned the name of Italian voted with the minority. The fifty million francs were quickly subscribed, chiefly in small sums, in Piedmont itself, a triumphant answer to the Paris house of Rothschild, which had declined to render its help. Cavour's speeches on the new loan were, in reality, addressed to Europe, and no one was more skilful in this kind of oratory than he. Without apparent elaboration, each phrase was studied to produce the effect desired. The policy of Piedmont, he said, had never altered since the king received his inheritance on the field of Novara. It was never provocative or revolutionary, but it was national and Italian. Austria was displayed as the peace-breaker, and, as she was pouring troops into Italy and massing them near the Piedmontese frontier, it was 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 her natural sympathies, because she believed that patriotic reasons required her to back up Austria. He repeated to the Chamber what he had often said in private, that the English alliance was the one which he had always valued above all others. It was a remarkable thing to say at a moment when he hoped so much more from France than from England. But precisely because he hoped to obtain material assistance from France, he was more than ever anxious to remain on good terms with England. He finely resisted the temptation of saying, "We can do without you." After having got the French into Italy, the next thing to do would be to get them out of it, and he foresaw that England would be useful then. Moreover, angry as he was in his heart, he did not doubt that the "suppressed sympathies" would break out again and prove irresistible. They were even breaking out already, for the arrival of the Neapolitan prisoners caused one of those powerful waves of feeling which, in England, always end by influencing the Government.

Meanwhile, Lord Derby's ministry made Herculean efforts to ward off war, in which, by force of traditions that govern all English parties, they had the opposition entirely with them. They begged Austria to evacuate the Papal Legations, and to leave off interfering with the States of Central Italy. They even asked Cavour to help them, by formulating his views on the best means of peaceably improving the condition of Italy. Cavour answered that 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 in Italy once offered their subjects some compensation for the loss of nationality in a policy which defended them from the encroachments of the court of Rome, but the wise principles introduced by Maria Theresa and Joseph II. had been cast to the winds. Unless Austria completely reversed her policy, and became the promoter of constitutional government throughout Italy, nothing could save her; the problem would be solved by war or revolution.

It ought to have been apparent that, as far as Piedmont was concerned, the control of the situation had passed out of the hands of the Government. The youth of Lombardy was streaming into the country to enlist either in the army or in the corps of "Hunters of the Alps," which was now formed. Cavour looked on this patriotic invasion with delight; "They may throw me into the 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 to go to war. Prince Bismarck once declared that he had never found it possible to tell in advance whether his plans would succeed; he could navigate among political events, but he could not direct them. Since the meeting at Plombieres, Cavour had undertaken to direct events, the most perilous game at which a statesman can play. For a moment he thought that he had failed.



CHAPTER IX

THE WAR OF 1859—VILLAFRANCA

On the whole it can be safely assumed that Napoleon's hark back was real, and was not a move "pour mieux sauter." He was not pleased at the cool reception given in Italy to a pamphlet known to have been inspired by him, in which the old scheme was revived of a federation of Italian States under the presidency of the Pope. The Empress was against war—it was said "for fear of a reverse." Perhaps she thought already what she said when flying from Paris in 1870: "En France il ne faut pas etre malheureux." But more than this fear, anxiety for the head of the Church made her anti-Italian, and, with her, the whole clerical party. Nor was this the limit of the opposition which the proposed war of liberation encountered. Though France did not know of the secret treaty, she knew enough to understand by this time where she was being led, and with singular unanimity she protested. When such different persons as Guizot; Lamartine, and Proudhon pronounced against a free Italy,—when no one except the Paris workman showed the slightest enthusiasm for the war,—it is hardly surprising if Napoleon, seized with alarm for his dynasty, was glad of any plausible excuse for a retreat. Such an excuse was forthcoming in the Russian proposal of a Congress, which was warmly seconded by England. Austria accepted the proposal subject to two conditions: the previous disarmament of Piedmont, and its exclusion from the Congress. The bearing of the French Ministry became almost insulting; the Emperor, said Walewski, was not going to rush into a war to favour Sardinia's ambition; everything would be peaceably settled by the Congress, in which Piedmont had not the smallest right to take part. None of the usual private hints came from the Tuileries to counteract the effect of these words.

Cavour was plunged in blank despair. He wrote to Napoleon that they would be driven to some desperate act, which was answered by a call to Paris; but his interviews with the Emperor only increased his fears. He threatened the king's abdication and his own retirement. He would go to America and publish all his correspondence with Napoleon. He alone was responsible for the course his country had taken, the pledges it had given, the engagements already performed (by which he meant the consent wrenched from the king to the Princess Clotilde's marriage). The responsibility would be crushing if he became guilty before God and man of the disasters which menaced his king and his country.

The English Government now proposed that all the Italian States should be admitted to the Congress, and that Austria as well as Piedmont should he invited to disarm. On April 17 Cavour sent a note agreeing to this plan. It was a tremendous risk; but it was the only way to prevent Piedmont from being deserted and left to its fate. If Austria also consented, all was lost: there would be peace. Could the gods be trusted to make her mad? Cavour's nervous organisation was strained at a tension that nearly snapped the cord. It is believed that he was on the brink of suicide. On April 19 he shut himself up in his room and gave orders that no one should be admitted. On being told of this, his faithful friend, Castelli, who was one of the few persons not afraid of him, rushed to the Palazzo Cavour, where his worst fears were confirmed by the old major-domo, who said, "The Count is alone in his room; he has burnt many papers; he told us to let no one pass; but for heaven's sake, go in and see him at whatever cost." When he went in, Castelli saw a litter of torn-up papers; others were burning on the hearth. He said that he knew no one was to pass and that was why he had come. Cavour stared at him in silence. Then he went on, "Must I believe that Count Cavour will desert the camp on the eve of battle; that he will abandon us all?" And, unhinged by excitement and by his great affection for the man, he burst into tears. Cavour walked round the room looking like one distraught. Then he stopped opposite to Castelli and embraced him, saying, "Be tranquil; we will face it all together," Castelli went out to reassure those who had brought him the alarming news. Neither he nor Cavour afterwards alluded to this strange scene.

At the very moment that Cavour thought he had lost the game, he had won it. On the same day, April 19, Count Buol,—somewhat, it is said, against his better judgment, but yielding to the Emperor, who again yielded to the military party,—sent off a contemptuous rejoinder to the English proposals. Ignoring all suggestions, the Austrian Minister said that they would themselves call upon Piedmont to disarm. Here, then, was the famous acte d'agression. Napoleon could not escape now.

The fact that this happened simultaneously with Sardinia's submission to the will of Europe was a wonderful piece of luck, which, as Massimo d'Azeglio said, could happen only once in a century. When the Austrian Government took the irrevocable step, it did not know yet that the whole onus of breaking the peace would fall upon it. Nor, it must be remembered, did it know the test of the treaty between France and Sardinia, and in view of the French Emperor's recent conduct it may well have become convinced that no treaty at all existed. Hence it is probable that Austria flattered herself that she would only have to deal with weak Sardinia.

The Chamber of Deputies was convoked on April 23 to confer plenary powers on the king. Many deputies were so overcome that they wept. Just as the President of the Chamber announced the vote, a scrap of paper was handed to Cavour, on which were written the words in pencil: "They are here; I have seen them." It was from a person whom he had instructed to inform him instantly when the bearers of the Austrian Ultimatum arrived. They were come; angels of light could not have been more welcome! Cavour went hastily out, while the House broke into deafening cries of "Long live the king!" He said to the friend who brought the message, "I am leaving the last sitting of the last Piedmontese Chamber." The next would represent the kingdom of Italy.

The Sardinian army to be placed on a peace-footing, the volunteers to be dismissed, an answer of "Yes" or "No" required within three days—these were the terms of the Ultimatum. If the answer were not fully satisfactory His Majesty would resort to force. Cavour replied that Piedmont had given its adhesion to the proposals made by England with the approval of France, Prussia and Russia, and had nothing more to say. No one who saw the statesman's radiant face would have guessed that less than a week before he had passed through so frightful a mental crisis. He took leave of Baron von Kellersberg with graceful courtesy, and then, turning to those present, he said, "We have made history; now let us go to dinner."

The French Ambassador at Vienna notified to Count Buol that his sovereign would consider the crossing of the frontier by the Austrian troops equivalent to a declaration of war.

Lord Malmesbury was so favourably impressed by Sardinia's docility and so furious with the Austrian coup de tete that he became in those days quite ardently Italian, which he assured Massimo d'Azeglio was his natural state of mind; and such it may have been, since cabinet ministers are constantly employed in upholding, especially in foreign affairs, what they most dislike. He hoped to stop the runaway Austrian steed by proposing mediation in lieu of a Congress; but the result was only to delay the outbreak of the war for a week, much to the disadvantage of the Austrians, as it gave the French time to arrive and the Piedmontese to flood the country by means of the canals of irrigation, thus preventing a dash at Turin, probably the best chance for Austria. Baron von Kellersberg and his companion, during their brief visit, had done nothing but pity "this fine town so soon to be given over to the horrors of war." Their solicitude proved superfluous.

For the present the statesman's task was ended. He had procured for his country a favourable opportunity for entering upon an inevitable struggle. When Napoleon said to Cavour on landing at Genoa, "Your plans are being realised," he was unconsciously forestalling the verdict of posterity. The reason that he was standing there was because Cavour had so willed it. In spite of the Emperor's fits of Italian sympathy and the various circumstances which impelled him towards helping Italy, he would not have taken the final resolution had not some one saved him the trouble by taking it for him. As a French student of history has lately said, in 1859, as in 1849, there was a Hamlet in the case; but Paris, not Turin, was his abode. Napoleon needed and perhaps desired to be precipitated. Look at it how we may, it must be allowed that he was doing a very grave thing: he was embarking on a war of no palpable necessity against the sentiment, as the Empress wrote to Count Arese, of his own country. A stronger man than he might have hesitated.

The natural discernment of the Italian masses enlightened them as to the magnitude of Cavour's part in the play, even in the hour when the interest seemed transferred to the battlefield, and when an emperor and a king moved among them as liberators. At Milan, after the victory of Magenta had opened its gates, the most permanent enthusiasm gathered round the short, stout, undistinguished figure in plain clothes and spectacles—the one decidedly prosaic appearance in the pomp of war and the glitter of royal state. Victor Emmanuel said good-humouredly that when driving with his great subject, he felt just like the tenor who leads the prima donna forward to receive applause.

Success followed success, and this to the popular imagination is the all-and-all of war. Milan was freed, though the battle of Magenta was not unlike a drawn one; Lombardy was won, though the fight for the heights of Solferino could hardly have resulted as it did if the Austrians had not blundered into keeping a large part of their forces inactive. Would the same fortune be with the allies to the end? Cavour does not appear to have asked the question. He watched the war with no misgivings. It was to him a supreme satisfaction that the Sardinian army, which he had worked so hard to prepare, did Italy credit. He took a personal pride in the romantic exploits of the volunteers, though for political reasons he carefully concealed that he had been the first to think of placing them in the field. He made an indefatigable minister of war (having taken the office when La Marmora went to the front). The work was heavy; the problem of finding even bread enough for the allied armies was not a simple one. On one occasion the French Commissariat asked for a hundred thousand rations to make sure of receiving fifty thousand; the officer in charge was surprised to see one hundred and twenty thousand punctually arrive on the day named. Cavour's thoughts were not, however, only with the troops in Lombardy. The whole country was in a ferment, and instead of accelerating events the question now was to keep pace with them.

When Ferdinand II died, and a young king, the son of a princess of the House of Savoy, ascended the throne, Cavour invited him to join in the war with Austria. The invitation has been blamed as insincere and unpatriotic, but the best Neapolitans seconded it. Poerio said he was willing to go back to prison if King Francis would send his army to help Piedmont. Faithful to his primary object of expelling the Austrians, Cavour would have taken for an ally any one who had troops to give. Moreover, an alliance between Naples and Sardinia meant the final shelving of a scheme which had caused him anxiety, off and on, for many years: that of a Muratist restoration. Though he had always recognised that, were it accepted by the Neapolitans themselves, it would be impossible for him to oppose it, he understood that to place a Murat on the throne of Naples would be to move in the old vicious circle by substituting one foreign influence for another. There is no doubt that the idea was attractive to Napoleon. One of his first cares after he became Emperor had been to find an accomplished Neapolitan tutor for the young sons of Prince Murat. About the time of the Paris Congress emissaries were actively working on behalf of the French pretender in the kingdom of Naples. The propaganda was in abeyance during the war, because Russia made it a condition of her neutrality that the king of Naples should be let alone, but the simple fact that Napoleon had undertaken to liberate Italy was a splendid advertisement of the claims of his cousin. These considerations tended to make Cavour hold out his hand to the young Bourbon king. There is much evidence to show that the first impulse of Francis was to take it, but the counter influences around him were too strong. When he refused, he sealed his own doom, though the time for the crisis was not yet come.

In Central Italy the crisis came at once. This had been foreseen by Cavour all along. At Plombieres he made no secret of his expectation that the defeat of the Austrians would entail the immediate union of Parma, Modena, and Romagna, with Piedmont. Napoleon did not then seem to object. To him Cavour did not speak of Tuscany, but he expected that there, too, the actual government would be overthrown; what he doubted was what would happen after. Many well-informed persons thought that the Grand Duke, who would have maintained the constitution of 1848 but for the threats of Austria, would seize the first opportunity of restoring it. Fortunately Leopold II. looked beneath the surface: he saw that an Austrian prince in Italy was henceforth an anachronism. The indignities which he suffered when his Italian patriotism—possibly quite sincere—caused him to be disowned by his relations were not forgotten. He had no heart for a bold stroke, and the exhortations of the English Government to remain neutral were hardly needed. If he wavered, it was only for a moment; nor did he care to place his son in the false position he declined for himself. The Grand Duke left Florence, openly, at two o'clock on April 27, 1859, carrying with him the personal good wishes of all. The chief boulder in the path of Italian unity was gone, but for reasons internal and external much would have to be done before Tuscany became the corner-stone of New Italy. The Tuscans clung to their autonomy. Though Victor Emmanuel was invited to assume the protectorate, it was explained that this was only meant to last during the war. The French Emperor thought that there was an opening for a new kingdom of Etruria with Prince Napoleon at the head. All sorts of intrigues were set afoot by all the great powers except England to re-erect Tuscany as a dam to stem the flood of unity midway. Cavour was determined to defeat them. It was against his rule to discuss remote events. He once said to a novice in public life, "If you want to be a politician, for mercy's sake do not look more than a week ahead." Every time, however, that there arose a present chance of making another step towards unity, Cavour was eagerly impatient to profit by it. He now strove with all the energy he possessed to procure the immediate annexation of Tuscany to Piedmont. The object was good, but what he did not see was, that the slightest appearance of wishing to "rush" Tuscany would so offend the municipal pride and intellectual exclusiveness of the polished Tuscans, that the seeds would be laid of a powerful and, perhaps, fatal reaction. It was at this critical juncture that Baron Bettino Ricasoli began his year of autocracy. His programme was: neither fusions nor annexations, but union of the Italian peoples under the constitutional sceptre of Victor Emmanuel. It was Tuscany's business, he said, to make the new kingdom of Italy. He looked upon himself as providentially appointed to carry that business into effect. He was called Minister of the Interior, and he was, in fact, dictator. When any one tried to overawe him, his answer was that he had existed for twelve centuries. He had not wished for foreign help, and he was not afraid of foreign threats. He often disagreed with Cavour, and he was the only man who never gave in to him. When Ricasoli took office he and the republican baker, Dolfi, who was his invaluable auxiliary, were possibly the only two thorough-going unionists-at-all-costs in Tuscany; when he resigned it twelve months later there was not a partisan of autonomy left in the province. This was the work of the "Iron Baron."

In the other three states, where the first shock to the power of Austria overturned the Government, there were no such complicated questions as in Tuscany. Parma and Modena returned to their allegiance of 1848, and in Romagna those who were not in favour of an Italian kingdom were not autonomists but republicans, who were willing to sacrifice their own ideal to unity. The revolution in the States of the Church was foiled at Ancona, and put down with much bloodshed at Perugia: it is curious to speculate what would have been the result if it had spread to the gates of Rome, as without this check it would have done. Cavour sent L.C. Farini to Modena, and Massimo d'Azeglio to Bologna, to take over what was called the "protectorate," and special commissioners were also appointed at Parma and Florence, but at Florence the real ruler was Ricasoli.

On July 5 Cavour told Kossuth that European diplomacy was very anxious to patch up a worthless peace, but still he had no fears. He did not guess that they were on the verge of seeing realised Mazzini's prophecy of six months before: "You will be in the camp in some corner of Lombardy when the peace which betrays Venice will be signed without your knowledge." In proportion as Cavour had placed faith in Napoleon's promises, so great was his revulsion of feeling when he learnt that on July 6 General Fleury went to the Emperor of Austria's headquarters at Verona with proposals for a suspension of hostilities. The passionate nature which was generally kept under such rigorous control that few suspected its existence for once asserted itself unrestrained. Those around Cavour were in apprehension for his life and his reason. In spite of all that has been said to the contrary, it is probable that Napoleon's resolution, though not unpremeditated, was of recent date. When he entered Milan, he seems to have really contemplated pushing the war beyond the Mincio; there is proof, however, that he was thinking of peace the day before the battle of Solferino, which disposes of the semi-official story that he changed his mind under the impression left on him by the scene of carnage after that battle. Between the beginning and the end of June, reasons of no sentimental kind accumulated to make him pause. Events in Central Italy had gone farther than he looked for, and his private map of the kingdom of Upper Italy was growing smaller every day. Why was this? He cannot have been seized with a warm interest in the unattractive despotism of the Duke of Modena, or the chronic anarchy kept down by Austrian bayonets at Bologna. But it was becoming apparent that if Modena and Romagna were joined to the new Italian kingdom, Tuscany would come too, and this Napoleon had not expected and did not want. He was clever enough to see that with Tuscany the unity of Italy was made. A great political genius would have said, So be it! Never was there worse policy than that of helping to free Italy, and then deliberately rooting out gratitude from her heart. Whatever Napoleon thought himself, he was alarmed by the news from France; the Empress and the clerical party were in despair at the revolution in the Roman States, and the country was indignant at the prospect of an Italy strong enough to have a voice of her own in the councils of Europe.

Besides all this, there was still graver news from Germany. Six Prussian army corps were ready to move for the Rhine frontier. The history of Prussian policy in 1859 has not yet been fully written out, but the gaps in the narrative are closing up. That policy was directed by the Prince Begent, and it gives the measure of the success which would have attended subsequent efforts if the day had not arrived when he surrendered himself body and soul into the hands of a greater man. So much for the present German Emperor's theory that the men in the councils of his grandfather only executed great things because they did their master's will. It is true that William I. aimed at the same end as that which Count Bismarck had already in view, and which he was destined to achieve—the ousting of Austria from Germany, as a preliminary to sublimer doings. But while the Prince Regent would not fight Austria, and hoped to get rid of her by political conjuring, the future Chancellor comprehended that the problem could only be settled by the argument ferro et igni. Bismarck's policy in 1859 would have been neutrality, with a certain leaning towards Napoleon. This advice, given by every post from St. Petersburg to Berlin, caused him to be accused of selling his soul to the devil, on which he dryly remarked that, if it were so, the devil was Teutonic, not Gallic.

The Prince Regent tried to prevent the Diet from going to war, because, in a federal war, Prussia's ruler would only figure as general of the armies of the confederation—which meant of Austria. His plan was to let Austria get into very bad difficulties, and then come forward singly to save her. By means of this "armed mediation" he would be able afterwards to dictate what terms he chose to the much indebted Austrian Emperor. It looked well on paper, but the armistice of Villafranca spoilt everything. The Emperor Francis Joseph did not wish to be "saved." This, and only this, can explain his readiness to make peace when, from a military point of view, his situation was far from desperate. No one knew this better than Napoleon. Before the allied armies lay the mouse-trap of the Quadrilateral, so much easier to get into than to get out of. The limelight of victory could not hide from those who knew the facts the complete deficiency of organisation and discipline which the war had revealed in the French army. According to Prince Napoleon, the men considered their head and their generals incapable, and had lost all confidence in them. Nevertheless they fought well; no troops ever fought better than the French when storming the heights of Solferino, but on the very day after that battle, when the Austrians were miles away in full retreat, an extraordinary, though little known, incident occurred. On a report spreading from the French outposts that the enemy was upon them, there was an universal sauve qui peut—officers, men, sick and sound, gendarmes, infantry, cavalry, artillery trains—in one word, every one made off. What would be the effect of a single defeat on such an army?

It must always appear strange that none of these things struck Cavour. He only saw the immense, immeasurable disappointment. When he rushed to the king's headquarters near Desenzano, it was to advise him to refuse Lombardy and abdicate, or to continue the war by himself. Cavour had never loved the king, or done justice to his statesmanlike qualities; a bitter scene took place between them, which Victor Emmanuel closed abruptly. Afterwards he met Prince Napoleon, who replied to his reproaches, "Mais enfin, do you want us to sacrifice France and our dynasty to you?"

At that juncture it was the king, not the minister, to whom the task of pilot fell. Cut to the heart as he was, he kept his temper. He signed the preliminaries "pour ce qui me concerne," and, as on the morrow of Novara, he prepared to wait. The terms on which the armistice was granted seemed like a nightmare: Venice abandoned; Tuscany, Romagna, Modena, to be handed back to their former masters; the Pope to be made honorary president of a confederation in which Austria was to have a place. Cavour stood before Italy responsible for the war, and when he said to M. Pietri in the presence of Kossuth, "Your Emperor has dishonoured me—yes, dishonoured!" he meant the words in their most literal sense. But the white heat of his passion burnt out the dishonour, and Cavour, foiled and furious, was the most popular man in the country. His grief was so genuine that even his enemies could not call its sincerity in question. In three days he appeared to have grown ten years older. His first thought was to go and get killed at Bologna, if, as was expected, there was fighting there. Then, as always happened with him, he was calmed by the idea of action: "I will take Solaro de la Margherita by one hand and Mazzini by the other; I will become a conspirator, a revolutionist, but this treaty shall not be carried out." When he said this, he had resigned office; he was simply a private citizen, but all the consciousness of his power had returned to him. Some delay occurred in forming a new ministry. Count Arese was first called, but his position as a personal friend of the Emperor disqualified him for the task. Rattazzi succeeded better, but during the interregnum of eight or nine days Cavour was obliged to carry on the Government, and it thus devolved on him to communicate the official order to the Special Commissioners to abandon their posts. He accompanied the order by a private telegram telling them to stay where they were, and work with all their might for an Italian solution. Farini telegraphed from Modena that if the Duke, "trusting to conventions of which he knew nothing," were to attempt to return, he should treat him as an enemy to the king and country. Cavour's answer ran: "The minister is dead; the friend applauds your decision." 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. Kossuth believed to his last day that this result was due to him, an opinion which English readers are not likely to share. The gain for Italy was inestimable. The Whigs had supported Lord Malmesbury in his unprofitable efforts as a peacemaker; but when the war broke out they had no further reason to restrain their natural sympathies. Lord Palmerston especially wished the new kingdom to be strong enough to be independent of French influences. Had the Conservatives remained in office there is no doubt that they would have supported the plan to constitute Venetia a separate state under the Archduke Maximilian, which was regarded with much favour by that Prince's father-in-law, King Leopold, and hence by the Prince Consort. The Liberal Ministry would have nothing to do with it. Napoleon hoped, in the first instance, to shift the onus of stopping the war from himself to the English Government. He wished the programme of Villafranca to emanate from England; but, as Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord John Russell, why should they incur the opprobrium of leaving Italy laden with Austrian chains and of having betrayed the Italians at the moment of their brightest hopes? In the same letter (July 6), he pointed out that if a single Austrian ruler remained in Italy, whatever was the form of his administration, the excuse and even the fatal necessity of Austrian interference would remain or return. They were asked to parcel out the peoples of Italy as if they belonged to them! The Earl of Malmesbury once remarked that "on any question affecting Italy Lord Palmerston had no scruples." Had the Conservative statesman continued in office six months longer, in spite of his wish to see Italy happy, the "scruples" of which he spoke would have probably induced him to try and force her back under the Austrian yoke. Whether Cavour's life-work was to succeed or fail depended henceforth largely on England. "Now it is England's turn," he said frequently to his relations in Switzerland, where he went to recover his health and spirits. Soon all traces of depression disappeared. While Europe thought that it had assisted at his political funeral, he was engaged not in thinking how things might be remedied, but how he was going to remedy them. It was not the king, Piedmont, Italy, that would prevent the treaty from being carried out; it was "I." The road was cut; he would take another. He would occupy himself with Naples. People might call him a revolutionist or what they pleased, but they must go on, and they would go on.

There exists proof that after Villafranca, Cavour expected Napoleon to demand Savoy and Nice, or at least Savoy, notwithstanding that Venetia was not freed. The Emperor considered it necessary, however, to go through the form of renouncing the two provinces. He is reported to have said to Victor Emmanuel before leaving for Paris, "Your government will pay me the cost of the war, and we shall think no more about Nice and Savoy. Now we shall see what the Italians can do by themselves." Walewski confirmed this by stating that the simple annexation of Lombardy was not a sufficient motive "for demanding a sacrifice on the part of our ally in the interest of the safety of our frontiers," and in August he formally repeated to Rattazzi that they did not dream of annexing Savoy. Sincere or not, these disclaimers released Victor Emmanuel from the secret bond into which Cavour had persuaded him to enter. The contract was recognised as null. Rattazzi was notoriously opposed to any cession of territory, and had he known how to play his game it is at least open to argument that the House of Savoy might have been spared losing its birthright as the Houses of Orange and Lorraine had lost theirs. But his weak policy landed Italian affairs in a chaos which made Napoleon once more master of the situation.