y open of influencing public opinion by founding a
newspaper, the _Risorgimento,_ in which he continued to write for
several years. In the Chamber of Deputies he soon made his power
felt--power is the word, for he was no orator in the ordinary sense;
his speeches read well, as hard hitting and logical expositions, but
they were not well delivered. Cavour never spoke Italian with true
grace and ease though he selected it for his speeches, and not French,
which was also allowed and which he spoke admirably. His presence,
too, did not lend itself to oratory; short and thickset, and careless
in his dress, he formed a contrast to the romantic figure of
D'Azeglio. Yet his prosaic face, when animated, gave an impressive
sense of that attribute which seemed to emanate from the whole man:
power.

It needed a more wary hand than D'Azeglio's to steer out of the
troubled waters caused by the ecclesiastical bills, and to put the
final touches to the legislation which he, to his lasting honour be it
said, had courageously and successfully initiated. In the autumn of
1852 D'Azeglio resigned, and Cavour was requested by the King to form
a ministry. He was to remain, with short breaks, at the head of public
affairs for the nine following years.

At this time the government of Lombardy and Venetia was vested in
Field-Marshal Radetsky, with two lieutenant-governors under him, who
only executed his orders. Radetsky resided at Verona. Politically and
economically the two provinces were then undergoing an extremity of
misery; the diseases of the vines and the silkworms had reached the
point of causing absolute ruin to the great mass of proprietors who,
reckoning on having always enough to live on, had not laid by. Many
noble families sank to the condition of peasants. The taxation was
heavier than in any other part of the Austrian Empire; in proof of
which it may be mentioned that Lombardy paid 80,000,000 francs into
the Austrian treasury, which, had the Empire been taxed equally, would
have given an annual total of 1,100,000,000, whereas the revenue
amounted to only 736,000,000. The landtax was almost double what it
was in the German provinces. Italians, however, have a great capacity
for supporting such burdens with patience, and it is doubtful whether
the material aspect of the case did much to increase their hatred of
foreign dominion. Its moral aspect grew daily worse; the terror became
chronic. The possession of a sheet of printed pa