Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/449

Rh obtained freedom of the press; freedom of election, &c., and every constitutional question was explained in a liberal spirit by the liberal-minded minister. It is true that the noble Gioberti was obliged to withdraw into voluntary exile, where he shortly afterwards died; and it is true also, that the council of reactionary men operated not unfrequently upon the acts of the king; but, upon the whole, he continued faithful to the course he had taken, and in which the most thoughtful and distinguished men of Piedmont kept him steadily by their counsel and activity.

A pleiad of such men had grown up around his throne, as is always the case at certain periods in the nations which Providence has destined for some important work. Cavour, though then quite young, had already drawn upon himself the attention of the thoughtful friends of the country, by his conduct as deputy, his keen insight and his unusual talents; and more than one had predicted that this young man would sometime play an important part in the fortunes of Piedmont.

But I will now speak of Carlo Alberto.

He had made fiasco before the whole world, in the war with Austria. That was bitter to his self-love and to his love of his country. Ambition, thirst of revenge, the hope of recovering his lost laurels, from an enemy which was now disturbed in another quarter—by the insurrection in Hungary—and the warlike spirit existing in Piedmont, especially in its army, which, lately beaten by Austria, now again stood ready for battle with the old foe—all this drove Carlo Alberto to break suddenly the ignominious