Builders of United Italy

by Rupert Sargent Holland

For fifteen years Cavour lived as a farmer at Leri, breaking the monotony of that existence by occasional visits to England and France. The former country always exerted great influence over him; he considered the life of the English country gentleman the ideal existence; he was a great admirer of Pitt and Sir Robert Peel (and said of Peel that he was “the statesman who more than any other had the instinct of the necessity of the moment,” words prophetic of his own career!), and was always a reader of Shakespeare, who among all writers he held had the deepest insight into the human heart. In Paris Cavour saw much of society through the influence of his French relations, and made the most of his opportunity to study the young rising men. He was frequently blamed by the men and women he met for leading such an aimless life, and was urged to enter the fields of literature or diplomacy. For the former he said he had no taste, for the latter he was too much out of sympathy with the government of his own country, and he could not enter the service of any other. He had the reputation of being a man of great wit and intelligence, gifted with gay and winning manners, interested to a certain extent in all concerns of the day, but unwilling to sacrifice himself to a constant devotion to any one pursuit. The women of the leading salons found his light hair, blue eyes, and happy temper charming, the men of the time valued his keen insight into contemporary questions. He played cards frequently for high stakes, but never allowed himself to become an habitual gambler. Later in life it is said that he indulged in playing for high stakes with politicians in order to gain an insight into their characters. His visits to Paris undoubtedly taught him much concerning the men with whom he was later to have so much to do, and his stays in England showed him the strength of Parliamentary government. He took vivid impressions back with him to Leri, and used his mental energy in adapting English ideas on agriculture to the needs of his farm.

With the governing world of Piedmont Cavour was undeniably unpopular. The antiquated leaders of public life considered him perilously liberal, and no party or clique found him really in accord with its views. He had written some articles for foreign newspapers, and had openly advocated the need of railways in Italy, but such of his countrymen as undertook to learn his views held him a dangerous fanatic. Singularly enough, without having made any attempt to place himself before the public, he was an object of popular distrust. He counted this rather an item in his favor, he was in no wise indebted to any man or any cause. He preferred to wait until the day of petty reactionaries should give place to serious popular movements, and by 1847 he saw that such a crisis was not far distant. Charles Albert, by nature always an enigma, was moving forward faster than his government, and was suspected of strong independent tendencies.

Charles Albert would have loomed larger in history if he had been born into either an earlier or a later age. He was not the man to direct a political crisis, he would have done well as the magnanimous sovereign of an Eighteenth Century state or as the intellectual head of a constitutional nation, but it was his misfortune to lack those vigorous robust qualities which Italians later found in his son. He was an ardent patriot, he earnestly desired to free the Italian states from foreign rule, he was zealous that Piedmont should lead in such a cause, but he was continually afraid that independence would lead directly to popular liberty under a constitution. “I desire as much as you do,” he said to Roberto d’Azeglio, “the enfranchisement of Italy, and it is for that reason, remember well, that I will never give a constitution to my people.” His advisers, who were largely clericals, and almost always reactionaries, lost no chance to impress upon his mind the impossibility of the consummation he desired. Start the new order, they said, and no man knows how far it will go. He was in fear of loosing a spirit which he could never cage. Yet his honest desire for national independence made him hearken at times to more liberal voices. In one of these moments he revoked the censorship of the press.

Cavour, primed with the history of England, saw what a free press meant, and instantly left his retirement at Leri to seize the golden opportunity. He founded a newspaper and gave it a name destined to stand for the whole movement towards nationalism, “Il Risorgimento.” The prospectus of the paper stated its aims as independence, union between the Princes and the people, and reforms. Cavour was now prepared to speak his mind.

He did not have long to wait. The people of Genoa announced that they were preparing to send a committee to the capital to ask for the expulsion of the Jesuits and the organization of a national guard. The principal editors of Turin met to consider what stand they should take in reference to these demands. The suggestion to support the Genoese petitions was meeting with general approval when Cavour rose to speak. His words fell like a bomb, he said that the demands were far too small, that the only prudence lay in asking for much more. The statement was the keynote to all his later statecraft. “Of what use,” he asked, “are reforms which have nothing definite, and lead to nothing? Where is the good of asking for that which, whether granted or not, equally disturbs the State, and weakens the moral authority of the government? Since the government can no longer be maintained on its former basis, let us ask for a constitution, and substitute for that basis another more conformable to the spirit of the times, and to the progress of civilization. Let us do this before it is too late, and before the authority which keeps society together is dissolved by popular clamor.”

Cavour’s proposal precipitated a violent contest. Both moderates and liberals thought that he was asking far too much; Valerio, the leader of the better element, declared that in asking for a constitution the meeting went far beyond the wishes of the people. The meeting broke up without reaching a decision, but the reports of it scattered with lightning-like rapidity. Valerio ridiculed the proposal to his friends and called Cavour an aper of English customs. He said, “Don’t you know my Lord Camille?—the greatest reactionist of the kingdom; the greatest enemy of the revolution, an Anglomane of the purest breed.” Cavour was nicknamed “Milord Camillo” and “Milord Risorgimento,” he was continually asked if he desired to erect an English House of Lords.

The ridicule passed, but the suggestion remained. Charles Albert heard of Cavour’s speech to the editors, and he had already lived through the first two months of that electrifying year of 1848. Constitution-making was in the air, Louis Philippe was falling, the little Italian Princes were throwing promises to their waking people. He hesitated, he was under a secret pledge to continue the government of his country in the same form in which it had come to him, he thought seriously of abdicating, but his son, Victor Emmanuel, opposed the idea vigorously. Finally, after much anxious thought and many family consultations, he decided to grant a constitution, and the famous Statute was given to the Sardinian kingdom. It is interesting to note that fifty years later the King’s grandson celebrated the date of the promulgation of what was to become the charter of Italian independence.

Raised temporarily to a pinnacle of popular applause, the fickle gusts of an excitable public opinion soon blew Cavour down to his former standing. No one really agreed with his opinions, to the moderates he was still alarmingly audacious, to the liberals too deeply imbued with the spirit of English aristocracy. He stood for election under the new constitution at Turin, and was defeated; shortly afterwards, however, he was elected to fill an unexpected vacancy. Count Balbo, the first Prime Minister under the constitution, and Cavour’s co-editor of the Risorgimento, did not ask him to join the cabinet, and openly expressed his disapproval of his fellow-journalist’s ideas. The truth of the matter was that men were afraid of Cavour, they distrusted him partly because they did not understand him, and partly because it was only too evident that if he were given the chance he would drive the car of state to suit himself.

The new cabinet had no sooner assumed office than Milan revolted against the Austrians. Charles Albert hesitated, he was heart and soul with the Milanese, but England and Russia both warned him against war with Austria. His cabinet was divided, half feared to stake too much, half were for wagering all. Cavour printed hot words in the Risorgimento: “We, men of calm minds, accustomed to listen more to the dictates of reason than to the impulses of the heart, after deliberately weighing each word we utter, are bound in conscience to declare that only one path is open to the nation, the government, the King: war, immediate war!” The evening of the day of publication the King decided on war, and Piedmont rushed to the aid of newly-arisen Lombardy.

The story of that campaign is briefly told, great confidence, heroic sacrifices, a few victorious battles, and then the re-enforcement of Radetsky’s army and the retreat to Milan. Sardinia had brave soldiers, but no great generals, the victories were not followed up as Napoleon had done on the same fields. At the battle of Goito Cavour’s nephew, Augusto di Cavour, a boy of twenty, was killed. On his body was found a last letter from his uncle encouraging him to do his duty; the blow was a terrible one for Cavour; he had predicted the noblest future for Augusto. It is said that he ever afterward kept the shot-riddled uniform of the boy in a glass case in his bedroom, a relic and reminder of heroism.