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a military despotism more compact, more disciplined, and more overpowering than any which had preceded it or any which has followed it.

But, as we have said, the conclusion of a prolonged article is no place for discussing the precise nature of Mr. Pitt's antirevolutionary policy. As has been observed, he did not comprehend the Revolution in France; as Lord Macaulay has explained, with his habitual power, he over-rated the danger of a revolution in this country; he entirely over-estimated the power of the democratic assailants, and he entirely underestimated the force of the conservative, maintaining, restraining, and, if need were, reactionary, influence. He saw his enemy, but he did not see his allies. But it is not given to many men to conquer such difficulties; it is not given to the greatest of administrators to apprehend entirely new phenomena. A highly imaginative statesman, a man of great moments and great visions, a greater Lord Chatham, might have done so, but the educated sense and equable dexterity of Mr. Pitt failed. All which he could do he did. He burnt the memory of his own name into the Continental mind. After sixty years, the French people still half believe that it was the gold of Pitt which caused half their misfortunes; after half a century it is still certain that it was Pitt's indomitable spirit and Pitt's hopeful temper which was the soul of every Continental coalition, and the animating life of every antirevolutionary movement. He showed most distinctly how potent is the influence of a commanding character just when he most exhibited the characteristic contraction of even the best administrative intellect.

ART. X.-THE LATE COUNT CAVOUR.

The Times of Friday, June 7th, 1861.

SINCE our last issue the greatest of European statesmen has passed from the scene; and though the chronicle of current history is no part of our province, we should be wanting to our convictions did we fail to record our sense of the irreparable loss which freedom has sustained. Count Camillo Cavour, "maker" of Italy as he was so often styled, rendered to Europe a service, the effects of which may be felt long after his country has lost the memory of the sufferings he was the first successfully to relieve. Civilisation owes to him the first proof of the inestimable truth that it is as possible to "make" a constitutional monarchy as a republic or a despotism. The illusion which

for half a century has cramped all political thought and misdirected all political energy, the notion that a true constitution can only "grow," only be developed like a coral rock by internal and spontaneous accretion, is finally disproved. Arising out of the failures of the National Assembly, that theory has done more to retard the progress of European freedom than the House of Romanoff or the République Rouge. It roused every king for a struggle to the death with movements which, as philosophers taught, could end only in republicanism. It sowed the seeds of a fatal distrust between the middle class anxious for order, and the people anxious only for ideas; and it urged the revolutionists of Europe to waste strength which might have secured freedom, in a vain endeavour to force on an irreparable conflict with the past. Human beings want to see the result of their efforts; and as constitutions could only "grow," the peoples sprang at the form of existence which seemed immediately attainable. The property-holders of Europe, at the same time, were decided against republicanism, and the very class who ought to have led the vanguard of the battle of freedom rallied round the most pitiless of its foes. The movements of 1831 and 1848 alike ended in an increased power bestowed by the middle classes on the thrones to save themselves and their property from, what they imagined to be, the road to anarchy. Count Cavour was the first to show practically that the ideologues were wrong, that it was not necessary either to wait for ages, or break with the past, in order to build on a basis absolutely new. No land could seem less "fitted" for a mixed government than Italy. For generations her people had had no experience of government save republicanism or tyranny, while the mutual dislike of her provinces appeared to render "strong government" the first necessity for national cohesion. On this unpromising soil, in ten years, Count Cavour built a great constitutional monarchy, strong for battle, and unswerving in the maintenance of order, yet free in its organisation, and rich in that boundless capacity for ultimate development which only a strong freedom has been as yet successful to obtain.

He

Count Camillo Cavour was born in 1810, the second son of a family who, though not rich, traced back their pedigree to men who had followed the Dukes of Maurienne, when the favour of Charlemagne first raised them from the mass. belonged strictly to that grade of the Italian nobles, the ancient proprietors of the soil, which from age to age has supplied Italy with some of the highest names on her endless roll of greatness. He was trained in the ordinary way, at the Military Academy of Turin, and took service temporarily with the Court; but some fortunate inheritances left him free to follow the bent of his own fancy. This directed him to study, and study of the

practical kind, which Italians left to themselves have always favoured. He mastered the economists, still almost unknown in Italy, and then, to the disgust of his relatives, announced his intention of travelling in England. Here he remained some years, studying the working of our institutions with eyes which, as Lord Shaftesbury has borne witness, watched a ragged school as intently as a change of ministry. He returned to Italy in 1842, but attempted little in political life till 1849, when Charles Albert of Piedmont, deserted by Italians, thwarted by Mazzini, and sick with the despair of defeated hope, sank with the grand apology on his lips," At least I have not died as kings die." His son remained faithful to his father's principles; the "Statuto" remained untouched; and Victor Emanuel, who had refused an Austrian guarantee rather than break his father's pledge, received unconsciously his reward, when in 1849 he admitted Camillo Cavour into the government. In the following year Count Cavour became Minister of Commerce, and from that time virtual master of the destinies of Piedmont.

Aristocrat in grain, with that strangely inflexible will which is sometimes found in men whose external traits are brusquerie and humour, he rapidly acquired the control of the cabinet, and commenced his task of preparing Piedmont for the absorption of the Peninsula. An Italian by instinct as well as pedigree, he was, like all Italian statesmen, practical to excess. Under a delusion, whose growth it would take us too much space to explain, Englishmen have learnt to conceive the Italian intellect as essentially unpractical, dreamy, and apt to abstain from positive action. There never was a more radical mistake. The Italian statesman, from the day when a pawnbroker's son raised himself to the rank which enabled him to found the house of Este, the fountain of a dozen dynasties, has always postponed great ideas, grand hopes, and even fundamental principles, to a practical result. The Sforza who could have regenerated Italy, did what was practicable, and only organised Milan. The Visconti employed powers unrivalled in Europe to build up a personal authority in the limited territory they saw they could acquire. Machiavelli, despairing of the victory of good over evil, laid down a scheme of policy which for ages demoralised Italy by its distinct counsel to all rulers to sweep straight to the practical end, without regard for obstacles, human or divine. It was because the statesmen of Italy were so practical, so bent on securing the attainable, that they wasted minds which might have regenerated a continent on building a family or baffling an old pope. The men who covered Italy with cities which are the wonder of civilisation; who built the river-dykes of Lombardy;

who founded all existing schools of art; and who grooved out the channels in which all succeeding physical science has been content to move,-were scarcely the dreamers Englishmen are accustomed to believe. Like them, though greater than them, Count Cavour set himself to reorganise his country. Piedmont was oppressed by a false system of commerce, a feudal tenure, and a Church as powerful as that of Spain. Fortunately it possessed also a royal line which had been regarded for a thousand years with passionate veneration. Cavour used the royal authority to induce the nobles to resign their privileges, and to strike down the overgrown power of the Church. The first task was easy; but the second required all the firmness of his character. He successfully resisted alike menace and cajolery; the educated classes, once clear of his purpose, adhered to him with the unswerving fidelity that class can sometimes show, and the people looked only to their king. The latter, a man not intellectual in the ordinary sense of the word, inherited the strong will and clear sense which have for ages been the peculiarities of his house. The Pope admonished, and the clergy raved; member after member of his family was struck down, and the Jesuits pointed to the finger of Heaven as visibly at work; and still the king stood unwaveringly by his great servant. The Church was reduced to obedience, the useless monasteries suppressed, and one general scheme of taxation imposed upon the land. It was heavynearly 17. 58. a head, or two-thirds the English rate; but the land, relieved of feudal shackles and priests' waste, bore the burden easily, and, with the funds thus procured, the army was reformed. The kingdom in 1853 was as powerful as a state of six millions could hope in so short a space to become, and it remained only to give the Italians confidence in themselves.

With an almost marvellous tact, Count Cavour secured this, and by an act which revived the military confidence of the country, and linked it into the system of Europe without making a single foe. Availing himself of the control he had acquired in Parliament,-a control which enabled him to be secret as to his designs, he sent 15,000 men to the Crimea as the allies of the Western Powers. France and England of course were grateful; Austria dared not deprecate an act beneficial to the cause she had herself determined to support; and even the Emperor Nicholas forgave. The aid of Sardinia made little difference in the struggle; and Victor Emanuel's plea to his kinsman's remonstrance, Italy needs friends," was frankly accepted by the Czar. On the conclusion of the war, Count Cavour, disappointed at its early termination-for had it continued, the victors must have secured Sardinia a recompense―

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still perceived the full advantage he had gained. He boldly produced the Italian cause before the Conference of Paris, and placed Italy under the guardianship of Europe. The result was an outburst of European sympathy, which fortified Alessandria, isolated Austria, and roused in the Italian mind a warm confidence in the patriotism of their Premier, which, despite one tremendous shock, never forsook him while he lived. The European sentiment, aided perhaps by Orsini's bomb-shell, and the threats of the Carbonari, quickened in the mind of the Emperor Napoleon a long-matured resolve; and in January 1859 appeared the pledge to make Italy free from the Alps to the Adriatic. A brief campaign, in which Austria was driven from Lombardy, made the promise apparently easy of realisation, when Europe was suddenly astounded by the peace. The object of the war was given up; Venetia was left to Austria; the Austrian lieutenants were to be readmitted to the Duchies, and Piedmont added only a single province to her dominions. Above all, Cavour was dismissed. He was supposed to have resigned in despairing wrath; but despair was as foreign to that mind as fear; and it is now known that the resignation of Cavour was part of the purchase-money of Lombardy. The power, however, which is based on the affection of a race is not increased by office, and Cavour still directed the fortunes of the Italians. By a marvellous series of devices-intrigues, his enemies said-the provisions of Villafranca were set aside; province after province voted for annexation in a manner the Elect of France dared not despise; and the Emperor, defeated, but not discontent, allowed the Count once more to resume the helm of the government of Northern Italy.

And then occurred the one transaction which Italians consider to have thrown a stain upon their hero. The Premier stated in Parliament that no arrangement had been made with France involving a cession of Italian territory, and then proceeded to cede Nice and Savoy. It is impossible as yet to reconcile the words and the fact, and Cavour must lie, while Louis Napoleon lives, under the discredit of deceiving Italians into the wisest sacrifice they have made since the eagles retired to the left bank of the Danube. But history, when it can be written, will, we believe, show that Cavour was as much taken by surprise as Italy; that the cession was the price secured for LombardoVenetia, that Cavour believed the project at an end with Villafranca, that Napoleon alleviated that great blow by abandoning his claim, and that it was not till the murmur of France at a profitless war sounded menacingly in the Tuileries, that the Emperor of the French again exacted the consideration for the contract which had been but half fulfilled. That Cavour originally assented to the cession there is little room

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