s intervention in Italy was his
acquisition of Savoy and Nice (at the price of Italian hatred), and the
gain of Lombardy and the central districts for the national cause
(1859-60).

The agony of mind caused by this comparative failure undermined Cavour's
health; but in the last months of his life he helped to impel and guide
the revolutionary elements in Italy to an enterprise that ended in a
startling and momentous triumph. This was nothing less than the
overthrow of Bourbon rule in Sicily and Southern Italy by Garibaldi.
Thanks to Cavour's connivance, this dashing republican organised an
expedition of about 1000 volunteers near Genoa, set sail for Sicily, and
by a few blows shivered the chains of tyranny in that island. It is
noteworthy that British war-ships lent him covert but most important
help at Palermo and again in his crossing to the mainland; this timely
aid and the presence of a band of Britons in his ranks laid the
foundation of that friendship which has ever since united the two
nations. In Calabria the hero met with the feeblest resistance from the
Bourbon troops and the wildest of welcomes from the populace. At Salerno
he took tickets for Naples and entered the enemy's capital by railway
train (September 7). Then he purposed, after routing the Bourbon force
north of the city, to go on and attack the French at Rome and proclaim a
united Italy.

Cavour took care that he should do no such thing. The Piedmontese
statesman knew when to march onwards and when to halt. As his
compatriot, Manzoni, said of him, "Cavour has all the prudence and all
the imprudence of the true statesman." He had dared and won in 1855-59,
and again in secretly encouraging Garibaldi's venture. Now it was time
to stop in order to consolidate the gains to the national cause.

The leader of the red-shirts, having done what no king could do, was
thenceforth to be controlled by the monarchy of the north. Victor
Emmanuel came in as the _deus ex machina_; his troops pressed
southwards, occupying the eastern part of the Papal States in their
march, and joined hands with the Garibaldians to the north of Naples,
thus preventing the collision with France which the irregulars would
have brought about. Even as it was, Cavour had hard work to persuade
Napoleon that this was the only way of curbing Garibaldi and preventing
the erection of a South Italian Republic; but finally the French Emperor
looked on uneasily while the Pope's eastern territor