Radetsky, and in Hungary by the Ban of Croatia and 200,000 Russians.  Besides the regained supremacy in the Lombardo-Veneto, Austria was more predominant in the centre and south than in the palmiest days of the Holy Alliance.  A keen observer might have held that she was too predominant to be safe.  Talleyrand always said that if Italy were united under Austria she would escape from her, not sooner or later, but in a few years.  There was not political unity, but there may almost be said to have been moral unity.  Even in Rome, in spite of the French garrison, Austrian influence counted for much more than French.  When Victor Emmanuel gave the premiership to Massimo d’Azeglio, Cavour remarked that he was glad of the appointment, and equally so that D’Azeglio had not asked him to be his colleague, because in the actual circumstances it seemed to him difficult or impossible to do any good.  D’Azeglio could not have offered Cavour a portfolio without undoing the effect of his own appointment, by which confidence in Victor Emmanuel was confirmed.  The king was not sufficiently known for it to be wise to place beside him an unpopular man, a suspected codino, the nickname ("pig-tail”) given to reactionaries.  D’Azeglio, who was really prepared to go far less far than Cavour, was almost loved even by his political enemies, a wonderful phenomenon in Italy.  His patriotism had been lately sealed by the severe wound he received at Vicenza.  To rigid principles he added attractive and chivalric manners, which smoothed his relations with the young king, who, if brusque himself, did not like brusqueness in others.

Cavour retired, as became his wont, to enjoy the sweetness of rural leisure at Leri:  for him the sovereign remedy to political disquietude.  The well-cultivated fields, the rich grass lands, in the contemplation of which he took a peaceful but lively satisfaction, restored as usual his mental equilibrium, and brought back the hopefulness of his naturally sanguine temperament.  Before long he was exhorting his friends to be of good cheer; while liberty existed in a single corner of the peninsula there was no need to despair; if Piedmont kept her institutions free from despotism and anarchy, these would be the means of working efficaciously for the regeneration of the country.  To those who went to see him he said, rubbing his hands (a sure sign that he was regaining his spirits), “We shall begin again, and, profiting by past mistakes, we shall do better next time.”  Probably he foresaw that “next time” he would have the game in his own hands.

The king had done his part by proving his resolve to uphold the constitution, but all danger for liberty in Piedmont did not cease there.  The members of the party which had ruled during the earlier years of Charles Albert’s reign did not give themselves up for lost.  They cherished the hope of using the constitution to overturn liberty.  On the face of things, the moral to be drawn from recent history