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Updated: August 24, 2024
He who commands at present, having no estate of his own, enjoys a small commandery, which being added to his appointments at Nice, make the whole amount to about five hundred pounds sterling. If we may believe the politicians of Nice, the king of Sardinia's whole revenue does not fall short of twenty millions of Piedmontese livres, being above one million of our money.
"Sardinia's a country without resources," added the theologian. "For my part, I despise the Sardinians. They keep mounted men to hunt their bandits. He means that bandits who let themselves be caught by horse soldiers are idiots, and that soldiers who try to catch bandits on horseback have very little chance of getting at them.
The King of Sardinia's real object was Savona and all the Riviera di Ponente; for which reason he concurred so lamely in the invasion of Provence, where the Queen of Hungary, likewise, did not send one-third of the force stipulated, engrossed as she was by her oblique views upon the plunder of Genoa, and the recovery of Naples.
Our family had, indeed, been principally instrumental in the alliances of the two brothers of the King of France with the two Piedmontese Princesses, as I had been in the marriage of the Piedmontese Prince with the Princess of France. When the Emperor Joseph visited the Court of Turin he was requested when he saw me in Paris to signify the King of Sardinia's satisfaction at my good offices.
But he believed in his ambition, and he thought it madness to throw away what he regarded as the sole chance of freeing Italy on account of private doubts of the King of Sardinia's sincerity. Charles Albert had reigned for fourteen years, and still the mystery which surrounded his character formed as impenetrable a veil as ever. His internal policy was not simply stationary, it was retrograde.
Lord Malmesbury was so favourably impressed by Sardinia's docility and so furious with the Austrian coup de tête that he became in those days quite ardently Italian, which he assured Massimo d'Azeglio was his natural state of mind; and such it may have been, since cabinet ministers are constantly employed in upholding, especially in foreign affairs, what they most dislike.
Towards the north, the king of Sardinia's territories extend to within a mile of the gate; but the prince of Monaco can go upon his own ground along shore about five or six miles to the eastward, as far as Menton, another small town, which also belongs to him, and is situated on the seaside.
Austria's purpose never could be accomplished so long as a constitutional polity existed in the best, because the best governed and the best organized, of all the Italian States; and Sardinia's purpose never could be accomplished so long as Austria was in a condition to dictate to the Italians the manner in which they should be ruled.
It is said, that few European palaces exceed in splendour that of Sardinia's king; I found it very fine indeed, and the pictures dazzling. The death of a dropsical woman well known among all our connoisseurs detained my attention longest: the value set on it here is ten thousand pounds.
The bearing of the French Ministry became almost insulting; the Emperor, said Walewski, was not going to rush into a war to favour Sardinia's ambition; everything would be peaceably settled by the Congress, in which Piedmont had not the smallest right to take part. None of the usual private hints came from the Tuileries to counteract the effect of these words. Cavour was plunged in blank despair.
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