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The general sentiment of the country was that Crispi should be given dictatorial powers, and one of the Venetian deputies, an ultra-Conservative, coming fresh from an audience with the King, said to me that Crispi ought to be made dictator and that the King had professed his readiness to confer that power on him; and the chiefs of all the factions that had been engaged in the conspiracy for his downfall in 1891 were among the most eager to enter his ministry, when the King finally gave him the call to form one, after having combined in the most desperate intrigues to effect some other combination.
When Lord Salisbury came to power in 1895, he renewed a compact with Italy and Austria which had been made when Crispi was in office in his first premiership, about 1888, for a common action in all questions concerning the Turkish Empire; and on the occasion of the Armenian massacres he called for the execution of its provisions, sending the English fleet to Turkish waters and making a requisition on Austria and Italy for the support of their fleets.
He sent agents to Sicily, and notably Francesco Crispi, who, as a native of the island and a man of resource and quick intelligence, was well qualified to execute the work of propaganda and to elude the Bourbon police.
Crispi and I were never intimate, and the supposed confidence between us never extended beyond the communication of political matter which he thought should be made public, and which could be made public without violation of official secrecy.
His Sicilian army must have laid down their arms at a command from Turin were it given. And it would have been given. La Farina, like Crispi, a Sicilian by birth, arrived suddenly at Palermo, representing Cavour, as everyone thought, but in reality he represented himself.
In passing, one may remember that Mazarin himself was born in the Region of Trevi, the son of a Sicilian, like Crispi and Rudinì.
We passed the remainder of the day and the following night at Marsala, where I began to profit by the services of Crispi, an honest and capable Sicilian, who was of the greatest use to me in government business, and in making all necessary arrangements which my want of local knowledge prevented my doing myself.
Mind your steps, therefore, in performing the difficult egg dance which the European War may impose on us both. You are not, cannot be, friends of France, closely though you are related by blood. Neither can the French become our friends. Therefore you and we are natural allies, as your far-sighted politicians like Crispi perceived. Even Sonnino sees that and acknowledges it.
When this ministerial crisis was in progress, Monsignor X. came to me one evening to tell me that the chiefs of the factions in opposition were in conference with agents of the Vatican to support them in the overthrow of Crispi. The Vatican promised to release Catholics from the non expedit in case of the fall of the ministry and the necessity of going to the country in a general election.
Private judgment private aims everywhere from Crispi to the smallest lieutenant. Result universal wreck and muddle thousands of lives thrown away a nation brought to shame. Then look about you at what's going on here this week on these hills. It's Holy Week. They're all fasting they're a11 going to mass the people working in the fields, our servants, the bright little priests.
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