iven of the home politics of Piedmont in the year 1855.

"Battles long ago" never wholly lose their interest. The mere words,
"There was once a battle fought here" make the traveller stop and
think, even if he does not know by what men of what race it was
fought. But the parliamentary struggles of one generation seem passing
stale and unprofitable to the next. Yet the history of nations depends
as much on their civil as on their warlike contests. In Piedmont the
strife always turned on the same point: whether the State or the
Church should predominate. Free institutions do not settle the
question; it is most manifestly rife to-day in a free country, Canada.
In Italy itself a great clerical party is working silently but
ceaselessly, under the mask of abstention from the elections, to
recover its political power. The Sardinian Government could not
withdraw from the duel at will; the Church in Piedmont was a political
force constantly on the lookout for an opening to retake the position
it had lost. Besides the moral power derived from the support of the
peasants and of the old aristocracy, it wielded the material power of
an organised body, which was numerous and wealthy in proportion to the
numbers and wealth of the population. The annual income of the Church,
including the religious houses, was nearly L700,000 a year. There were
23,000 ecclesiastics, or 1 monk to every 670 inhabitants, 1 nun to
every 1695, 1 priest to every 214. In spite of the vast resources of
the Church, the parish priest in 2540 villages received a stipend
of less than L20 per year. Not only radicals but many moderate
politicians were of opinion that the great number of convents of the
contemplative orders formed an actual evil from the fact of
their encouraging able-bodied idleness, and the withdrawal of so
considerable a fraction of the population from the work and duties of
citizenship. In the autumn of 1854, before the Crimean War was thought
of, Rattazzi framed a bill by which the corporations that took no part
in public instruction, preaching, or nursing the sick, were abolished.
Since the last crisis on the civil marriage bill, which wrecked
D'Azeglio's ministry, Cavour, who all his life was not theoretically
opposed to coming to an understanding with Rome, had made several
advances to the Vatican, but with no effect: Rome refused any
modification of the Concordat or any reduction of the privileges
possessed by the clergy in the kingdom of Sa