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Updated: June 28, 2025
Cavour's mind was not poetic; we hear of his admiring only one poet, Shakespeare, but in Shakespeare it was probably the deep knowledge of man that attracted him, the apprehension of how men with given passions must act under given conditions.
Every reason, patriotic, political, geographical, justified Cavour's resolution. It was only by force that Umbria and the Marches had been retained under the papal sway in 1859; there was not an Italian who did not look on their liberation as a patriotic duty. In a literal sense, fifteen or twenty thousand men could not be a menace to Italy.
Among the Italians living abroad, Cavour's motives in taking part in the Crimean War were, from the first, better understood than they were at home. Piedmont, by qualifying for the part of Italian advocate in the Councils of Europe, gave a guarantee of good faith which patriots like Daniel Manin and Giorgio Pallavicini accepted as a happy promise for the future.
That neighbour, a Milanese named Giuseppe Torelli, has left an interesting description of Cavour's appearance as it was then. He was fresh-coloured, and his blue eyes had not yet lost their brightness, but they were so changeful in expression that it was difficult to fix their distinctive quality. Though rather stout he was not ungainly, as he tended to become later.
But the French Government did, in the plainest terms, threaten to intervene, and this notwithstanding that the Emperor himself appeared to be convinced by Cavour's argument, that the proposed scheme was the only means of checking the march of revolution, which from Rome might spread to Paris.
Cavour's thoughts were not, however, only with the troops in Lombardy. The whole country was in a ferment, and instead of accelerating events the question now was to keep pace with them. When Ferdinand II died, and a young king, the son of a princess of the House of Savoy, ascended the throne, Cavour invited him to join in the war with Austria.
They were ready to promise the Holy Father that freedom which he had never obtained from those who called themselves his allies and devoted sons. They were ready to assert through every portion of the king's dominions the great principle of a free church in a free state. At Cavour's invitation, parliament voted the choice of Rome as capital. From that vote there could be no going back.
The nightmare of Red Republicanism taking the bit between its teeth and bolting was not the only terror that disturbed Cavour's rest. He shuddered at the establishment of a dictatorial democracy which placed unlimited power in the hands of men of no experience, with only the lantern of advanced Liberalism to guide them.
It is a question whether it would not have been forced to go, if, at the outset, Cavour had declared war. France joined in the protests of the other Powers, and Cavour's enemies spread a monstrous rumour that he was going to give up Genoa to win Napoleon's complaisance.
A conversation is on record which took place between the two childless aunts who lived with the Cavours. The date was just before Cavour's departure on a first visit to Paris. "Did you remark," said Mme. Victoire, "how indifferent Camille seemed when I spoke to him of the Paris theatres? I really do not know what will interest him on his travels; the poor boy is entirely absorbed in revolutions."
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