CAVOUR RECALLED TO POWER

were not disposée! towards a general élection, and one of them in reading the letter recognised the • English hand of Sir James Hudson, General La Marmora, offended at what he considered the interférence of a foreign diplomatist in the internai affairs of the state, thereupon sent in his résignation.

The king was ill in bed, but he did not allow a moment’s time to be lost. When he had made up his mind on the right course to pursue he acted vvith promptitude and decision. An officer was sent in liot haste to Palazzo Cavour with orders to bring the count back with him immediately. He was just stepping into his carriage to go to the station when the royal messenger caught him. The king received him coldly, as if the memory of the Villafranca interview had corne to his mind.

Cavour’s anger was passed ; perhaps he felt he had been wrong, if not in his advice, in his manner of giving it, and that some concession was due to the king who had sacrificed his pride in sending for him ; he remembered the close tie which had bound them together for seven years, labouring heart and soûl for one common object ; and he made the amende, which at once restored him to the old confidential footing he occupied before the war, ‘ Do what you think best in everything/ said the king ; ‘ the responsibility of whatever happens will be yours.’

In five days Cavour had composed a new cabinet to his own taste. The Minister of War was General Fanti, who had commanded the army of the league in Central Italy ; which meant that it was thepolicyof the govern-

ment to annex those provinces. The gifted Count Mamiani, who had taken a prominent part in public affairs in 1848, and was a subject of the Pope, was made Minister of Public Instruction ; this too was not without a certain signification. There was joy in the disputed provinces when Cavour retumed to power, and there was bitter vexation in the ranks of the Codiîii. The Chambers were dissolved ; and Massimo Azeglio was called once more from his retirement on Lago Maggiore and sent as governor to Milan.

In the month of February the king visited Lombardy in royal pomp, accompanied by Count Cavour and ail the diplomatie body. The réception he met with was enthusiastic in the extreme. It is said that many Austrian officers were there incopiito to judge with their own eyes how the population felt on the subject of the change.

The longer the central States remained under a provisional government, openly directed by the cabinet of Turin, the more difficult was the task of restoring the exiled princes. It was now seven months since the dukes had fled, and no power seemed to think it a dut)/’ to reseat them on the thrones they had justly forfeited. The idea of the Congress had been abandoned ; and a:> nothing seemed likely to be done by Europe with regard to Italian affairs, the government of Victor Emmanuel thought it was time to put an end to the State of uncertainty, which, if further prolonged, might be dangerous.

The greatest difficulty was not about the duchies, but the Légations. The late subjects of the Pope were