s a case
of the survival of the fittest. What seemed a calamity was a step in
advance.

Early in March, the Marquis Pallavicini, prisoner of Spielberg, had a
long interview with Charles Albert. They sat face to face talking over
Italian matters, and the King said confidently that the army was now
flourishing; if the die were cast anew, they would win. At parting he
embraced the Lombard patriot with the words: 'Dear Pallavicini, how
glad I am to have seen you again! You and I had always the same
thought; the independence of Italy was the first dream of my youth; it
is my dream still, it will be till I die.'

Some characters grow small in misfortune, others grow great. The
terrible scene at the Palazzo Greppi, the charge of treason, the
shouts of 'death,' had left only one trace on Charles Albert's mind:
the burning desire to deliver his accusers.

The armistice was denounced on the 12th of March, a truce of eight
days being allowed before the recommencement of hostilities. There is
such a thing in politics as necessary madness, and it may be doubted
if the Sardinian war of 1849 was not this thing. The programme of
_fare da se_ had now to be carried out in stern earnest. Sardinia
stood alone, neither from south of the Apennines nor from north of the
Alps could help be hoped for. France, which was meditating quite
another sort of intervention, refused the loan even of a general.
'They were not going to offend Austria to please Piedmont,' said the
French Cabinet. Worse than this, the army was not in the flourishing
state of which the King had spoken. The miseries of the retreat, but
infinitely more, the incidents of Milan, though wiped out by the King
from his own memory, were vividly recollected by all ranks. Affection
was not the feeling with which the Piedmontese soldiers regarded the
'fratelli Lombardi.' Did anyone beside the King believe that this
army, which had lost faith in its cause, in its leaders and in itself,
was going to beat Radetsky? The old Field-Marshal might well show the
wildest joy when the denunciation of the armistice was communicated to
him. And yet the higher expediency demanded that the sacrifice of
Piedmont and of her King for Italy should be consummated.

Rattazzi announced the coming campaign to the Chambers on the 14th of
March; the news was well received; there was a general feeling that,
whatever happened, the present situation could not be prolonged. With
regard to the numbers they coul