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1898
Italia, ab exteris liberanda.
Motto of Pope JULIUS II.
'Je suis italien avant tout et c'est pour faire jouir a mon pays du self government à l'interieur, come a l'extereur que j'ai entrepuis la rude tache de chasser l'Autriche de l'Italie sans y substituer la domination d'aucune autre Puissance'—Cavour to the Marquis Emmanuel d'Azeglio (May 8, 1860)
The day is passed when the warmest admirer of the eminent man whosecharacter is sketched in the following pages would think it needfulto affirm that he alone regenerated his country. Many forces wereat work; the energising impulse of moral enthusiasm, the spell ofheroism, the ancient and still unextinguished potency of kinglyheadship. But Cavour's hand controlled the working of these forces,and compelled them to coalesce.
The first point in his plan was to make Piedmont a lever by whichItaly could be raised. An Englishman, Lord William Bentinck,conceived an identical plan in which Sicily stood for Piedmont. Hefailed, Cavour succeeded. The second point was to cause the Austrianpower in Italy to receive such a shock that, whether it succumbed atonce or not, it would never recover. In this too, with the helpof Napoleon III, he succeeded. The third point was to prevent theContinental Powers from forcibly impeding Italian Unity when it becameplain that the population desired to be united. This Cavour succeededin doing with the help of England.
Time, which beautifies unlovely things, begins to cast its glamourover the old Italian régimes. It is forgotten how low the Italianrace had fallen under puny autocrats whose influence was soporificwhen not vicious. The vigorous if turbulent life of the Middle Ageswas extinct; proof abounded that the rôle of small states was playedout. Goldsmith's description, severe as it is, was not unmerited—
Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array'd,
The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade;
Processions formed for piety and love,
A mistress or a saint in every grove.
By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd,
The sports of children satisfy the child;
Each nobler aim, represt by long control,
Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul.
Only those who do not know the past can turn away from the presentwith scorn or despair. In this century a nation has arisen which, inspite of all its troubles, is alive with ambition, industry, movement;which has ten thousand miles of railway, which has conquered themalaria at Rome, which has doubled its population and halved itsdeath-rate, which sends out great battle-ships from Venice and Spezia,Castellamare and Taranto. This nation is Cavour's memorial: simonumentum requiris circumspice.