t he
thought, he would have responded, "That is the first stone to move."
But he did not enter upon a discussion; he merely murmured, rubbing
his hands, "We shall do something!"

To the end Cavour evoked more ready sympathy among men of the other
provinces than among the Piedmontese, although these last came to
repose the blind trust in him which the Duke of Wellington's soldiers
reposed in their leader--a trust born of the conviction that he would
lead to victory. Latterly this was Victor Emmanuel's own way of
feeling towards Cavour. Sympathy was always lacking.

On taking office Cavour sold his shares in the agricultural and
industrial speculations which he had promoted, with the exception of
one company, then not in a flourishing state, and likely to collapse
if he withdrew his name. He also severed his connection with the
_Risorgimento_, which had cost him much money and made him many
enemies, but he believed that the services rendered by it to the cause
of orderly liberty were incalculable. He never regretted his years of
work in the _antro_, the wild beasts' den, as the advanced liberals
called the office of the journal, a name gaily adopted by himself.
As editor of the _Risorgimento_ he fought his one duel; a scandalous
attack on the personal honesty of the writers was made by a Jewish
financier in an obscure Nizzard sheet; an encounter with pistols
followed in which no one was hurt, but both sides seemed to have aimed
in earnest. There is a tragic absurdity in the possible extinction
of such a life as Cavour's on so paltry an occasion; yet, in the
surroundings in which he moved, he could not have passed over the
worthless attack in the silent contempt it deserved without being
called a coward. At the conclusion of the duel he walked away, turning
his back on his adversary, but no long time elapsed before, as
minister, he was taking trouble to obtain for this man some honorific
bauble which his vanity coveted.

On taking office, Cavour doubted for a moment his own future, the
doubt common to men who reach a position they have waited for too
long. In these times, he wrote, politicians were soon used up;
probably it would be so with him. But the work of his department
dispelled gloomy thoughts: as Minister of Commerce he negotiated
treaties with France, England, and Belgium in which a step was made
towards realising his favourite theories on free trade. Before long he
was also made Minister of the Marine; it wa