of the nineteenth
century, when the rebound from revolutionary chaos did not suffice to
denationalise the Kings of Sardinia, but sufficed to ally them with
reaction, ought we to turn if we would seize the true bearings of the
development of the Counts of Maurienne into Kings of Italy. At that
moment the mission of Piedmont, though not lost, was obscured. What
has rather to be contemplated is the historic tendency, viewed as a
whole, of both reigning house and people. No one has pointed out that
tendency more clearly than the anonymous author of a pamphlet entitled
_Le Testament politique du Chevalier Walpole_ (published at Amsterdam
in 1769), who was able to draw the horoscope of the House of Savoy
with a correctness which seems almost startling. He was not helped by
either sympathy or poetic imagination, but simply by political logic.
Sardinia, he said, was the best governed state in Europe. Instead of
yielding to the indolent apathy in which other reigning families were
sunk, its princes sought to improve its laws and develop its resources
according to the wants of the population and the exigences of the
climate. Finance, police, the administration of justice, military
discipline, presented the picture of order. From the nature of the
situation, a King of Sardinia must be ambitious, and to satisfy his
ambition he had only to bide his time. Placed between two great Powers
he could choose for his ally whichever would give him the most, and by
playing this mute _role_, it was impossible that he would not
hereafter be called upon to play one of the most important parts in
Europe. Italy was the oyster disputed by Austria and France; might it
not happen that the King of Sardinia, becoming judge and party, would
devour the oyster and leave the shells to the rival aspirants? It was
unlikely, added this far-seeing observer, that the Italian populations
should have got so innured to their chains as to prefer the harsh,
vexatious government of Austria to the happy lot which Sardinian
domination would secure to them, but even if they had become
demoralised to this extent, they could not resist the providential
advance of a temperate, robust and warlike nation like Piedmont, led
by a prince as enlightened as the King (Charles Emmanuel) who then
reigned over it.

The metaphor of the oyster recalls another, that of Italy being an
artichoke which the House of Savoy was to devour, a leaf at a time.
Whether or not a Duke of Savoy rea