came to the throne with few advantages; he was unpopular, his private
friends were said to be reactionaries, his brusque manners offended
most people. He had practically no advisers in these critical moments,
but the moral courage with which he refused the Austrian offers of
lenient terms if he would repudiate the Statute and his father's word,
won for him the nation's trust, which he never lost. Cavour, with all
his genius, could not have made the kingdom of Italy if the Italians
had doubted their king.

CHAPTER IV

IN PARLIAMENT

The condition of Italy, Cavour said, was worse at the end of the
year's struggle than at the beginning. Such was the case, if the
present only were looked at. When Austria resumed her sway in Lombardy
and Venetia she resumed it by the right of the conqueror, a more
intelligible, and in a sense a more legitimate, right than that
derived from bargains and treaties in which the population had no
voice. The House of Hapsburg was saved in Italy by one loyal servant,
Radetsky, and in Hungary by the Ban of Croatia and 200,000 Russians.
Besides the regained supremacy in the Lombardo-Veneto, Austria was
more predominant in the centre and south than in the palmiest days of
the Holy Alliance. A keen observer might have held that she was too
predominant to be safe. Talleyrand always said that if Italy were
united under Austria she would escape from her, not sooner or later,
but in a few years. There was not political unity, but there may
almost be said to have been moral unity. Even in Rome, in spite of the
French garrison, Austrian influence counted for much more than French.
When Victor Emmanuel gave the premiership to Massimo d'Azeglio, Cavour
remarked that he was glad of the appointment, and equally so that
D'Azeglio had not asked him to be his colleague, because in the actual
circumstances it seemed to him difficult or impossible to do any good.
D'Azeglio could not have offered Cavour a portfolio without undoing
the effect of his own appointment, by which confidence in Victor
Emmanuel was confirmed. The king was not sufficiently known for it to
be wise to place beside him an unpopular man, a suspected _codino_,
the nickname ("pig-tail") given to reactionaries. D'Azeglio, who was
really prepared to go far less far than Cavour, was almost loved
even by his political enemies, a wonderful phenomenon in Italy. His
patriotism had been lately sealed by the severe wound he received
at Vicenza.