ination as sovereign ceased from the day when it was
proved that it could not exist save by a double foreign occupation."
It had become a centre of corruption, which destroyed moral sense and
rendered religious sentiment null. Without the Temporal Power, many of
the wounds of the Church might be healed. It was useless to cite the
old argument of the independence of the head of the Church; in face
of a double occupation and the Swiss troops, it would be too bitter a
mockery. When Cavour spoke in these terms, Italian Unity seemed far
off. Now that it was accomplished, a new and potent motive arose for
settling the Roman question once for all. In May 1861 Mr. Disraeli
remarked to Count Vitzthum: "The sooner the inevitable war breaks out
the better. The Italian card-house can never last. Without Rome there
is no Italy. But that the French will evacuate the Eternal City is
highly improbable. On this point the interests of the Conservative
party coincide with those of Napoleon." There is no better judge of
the drift of political affairs than an out-and-out opponent. So
Prince Metternich always insisted that the Italians did not want
reforms--they wanted national existence, unity. Mr. Disraeli probably
had in mind a speech delivered in the House of Commons by Lord John
Russell, in which the Foreign Secretary recommended as "the best
arrangement" the Pope's retention of Rome with a small surrounding
territory. There is no doubt that a large part of the moderate party
in Italy would have then endorsed this recommendation. They looked
upon _Roma capitale_ as what D'Azeglio called it--a classical
fantasticality. What was the good of making an old man uncomfortable,
upsetting the religious susceptibilities of Europe, forfeiting the
complaisance of France, in order to pitch the tent of the nation in
a malarious town which was only fit to be a museum? Those who only
partly comprehended Cavour's character might have expected to find him
favourable to these opinions, which had a certain specious appearance
of practical good sense. But Cavour saw through the husk to the
kernel; he saw that "without Rome there was no Italy."

Without Rome Italian Unity was still only a name. Rome was the symbol,
as it was the safeguard of unity. Without it, Italy would remain a
conglomeration of provinces, a union, not a unit--not the great nation
which Cavour had laboured to create. Even as prime minister of little
Piedmont, he had spurned a parochial p