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Cavour had been re-elected when the king dissolved Parliament by what is known as the Proclamation of Moncalieri, and in the debates on the Foro ecclesiastico for the first time he made his power felt in the Chamber. He spoke as one who had long thought out the subject and had chosen his policy: "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's."
A few words, nevertheless, sufficed to dispel the illusion under which he laboured, and once convinced that the supreme authority of the Queen had been both recognized and ratified, he had no other alternative save to offer his submission; which he did, moreover, with so good a grace that Marie bestowed upon him, in token of welcome, the government of Normandy, which had hitherto been held by the Dauphin; while a short time subsequently, when he manifested fresh symptoms of discontent, the Duc de Bouillon was instructed to inquire by what means he could be conciliated; upon which he demanded a pension of fifty thousand livres, the reversion of the government of Dauphiny for his son, who had not at that time attained his fifth year, and the sum of two hundred thousand crowns with which to pay a debt to the Duke of Savoy, contracted on the duchy of Moncalieri belonging to his wife.
Each relied rather upon starving the others out than upon storming their positions, but Leganez managed to send a messenger into Turin telling Prince Thomas that he intended to attack the French and calling upon him to fall upon them with his troops at the same time. In pursuance of this design he retired some distance up the Po, and proceeded to cross the river at Moncalieri.
Yesterday morning my father took me to the suburbs of Moncalieri, to look at a villa which he thought of hiring for the coming summer, because we shall not go to Chieri again this year, and it turned out that the person who had the keys was a teacher who acts as secretary to the owner. He showed us the house, and then he took us to his own room, where he gave us something to drink.
Moncalieri, the papal envoy, returned to Rome with the news, and this so inflamed the Pope that the Cardinals Lodovico Borgia and Francesco Remolino, together with other Borgia partisans, instantly fled from Rome, where they no longer accounted themselves safe, and sought refuge with Gonzalo de Cordoba in the Spanish camp at Naples, imploring his protection at the same time for Cesare.
But all the way from Moncalieri to Turin I could not get that prisoner, standing at his little window, that farewell to his master, that poor inkstand made in prison, which told so much, out of my head; and I dreamed of them all night, and was still thinking of them this morning far enough from imagining the surprise which awaited me at school!
There were not wanting persons who blamed the new dissolution as unconstitutional, and who called the proclamation of Moncalieri which announced it an act of despotism and of improper interference with the independence of the electors. It is hardly too much to say that it was this royal proclamation that saved Piedmont.
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