lly invented this often-quoted
comparison, it is certain that power was what the rulers of Piedmont
cared for. They were no more a race of scholars and art patrons than
their people was a people of artists and poets. There is a story to
the effect that one Duke of Savoy could never make out what poetry
was, except that it was written in half lines, which caused a great
waste of paper. The only poet born in Piedmont found the country
unlivable. Recent research among the archives at Turin revealed facts
which were thought to be not creditable to certain princely persons,
and a gleaning was therefore made of documents to which the historical
student will no longer have access. The step was ill advised; what can
documents tell us on the subject that we do not know? Did anyone
suppose that the Savoy princes were commonly saints? Sainthood has
been the privilege of the women of the family, and they have kept it
mostly to themselves. But peccable and rough though the members of
this royal house may have been, very few of them were without the
governing faculty. 'C'est bien le souverain le plus fin que j'ai connu
en Europe,' said Thiers of Victor Emmanuel, whose acquaintance he made
in 1870, and in whom he found an able politician instead of the common
soldier he had expected. The remark might be extended back to all the
race. They understood the business of kings. A word not unlike the 'Tu
regere imperio populos, Romane, memento' of Virgil was breathed over
the cradle at Maurienne. If it did not send forth sons to rule the
world, its children were, at least, to be enthroned in the capital of
the Caesars, and to make Italy one for the first time since Augustus.

From April to August 1849, the peace negotiations dragged on. The
pretensions of Austria were still exorbitant, and she resisted the
demand which Piedmont, weak and reduced though she was, did not fear
to make, that she should amnesty her Italian subjects who had taken
part in the revolution. Unequal to cope with the difficulties of the
situation, the Delaunay ministry fell, and Massimo d'Azeglio was
appointed President of the Council. This was a good augury for
Piedmont; D'Azeglio's patriotism had received a seal in the wound
which he carried away from the defence of Vicenza. Honour was safe in
his hands, whatever were the sacrifices to which he might be obliged
to consent.

Some pressure having been put on Austria by France and England, she
agreed in July to evacuat