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For three months Cavour had been stormed at by all the Foreign Ministers in Turin, excepting Sir James Hudson, but, as he wrote to the Marquis E. D'Azeglio: 'I shall not draw back save before fleets and armies. Austria, France, Spain, Russia and Prussia now broke off diplomatic relations with Sardinia. What would be their next act?
Cavour sent L.C. Farini to Modena, and Massimo d'Azeglio to Bologna, to take over what was called the "protectorate," and special commissioners were also appointed at Parma and Florence, but at Florence the real ruler was Ricasoli. On July 5 Cavour told Kossuth that European diplomacy was very anxious to patch up a worthless peace, but still he had no fears.
D'Azeglio had fallen on a point on which Cavour was for and not against him; his successor desired to show that there would be no violent change of policy, and he therefore reconstructed the Cabinet as it was before, except for the change of head. He reserved for himself the Presidency of the Council and the Ministry of Finance.
His father was absent at the time with the Prince of Salerno, who had joined the Spanish army in the new war that had arisen between Charles V. and Francis I.; a war whose chivalrous and inspiring acts the Marquis d'Azeglio made use of in 1866 in his romance of history, Fieramosca, to rouse again a spirit of independence in his countrymen.
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.
The first draft of the document was written by D'Azeglio, in whose literary style Cavour felt more faith than in his own; but this was not used. It was "magnificent," Cavour said, but "too diffuse and long."
It was the aim of D'Azeglio to bring to bear an enlightened public opinion on the evils which were generally admitted, without provoking revolutionary risings, in which he had no faith. Like other Italian patriots, he desired to see his country freed from foreign domination, and was as much disliked by Metternich as by Mazzini.
With the Emperor it was needful to put everything in the most concrete form, and to take a general view of all the hypotheses, except war with Austria, which, "for the present," did not enter into his ideas. D'Azeglio was offended at the rejection of his work. He wrote complainingly, "I may be called a fool about everything else, Amen; but about Italy, no!"
In any case, when D'Azeglio, who was appointed Sardinian representative, refused at the last moment to undertake a charge for which he knew he was not fitted, it was only at the urgent request of the King that Cavour consented to take his place. When once in Paris, however, he warmed to the work, finding an unexpectedly strong ally in Lord Clarendon.
He began treating Austria with more consideration than she had received from Massimo d'Azeglio, who was a bad hand at dissembling. Count Buol was gratified, almost grateful. But these relatively harmonious relations did not last long. In February 1853 there was an abortive attempt at revolution in Milan, of which not one person in a thousand knew anything till it was suppressed.
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