he urgent request of the King that
Cavour consented to take his place. When once in Paris, however, he
warmed to the work, finding an unexpectedly strong ally in Lord
Clarendon. He won what was considered in all Europe a great diplomatic
triumph, by getting a special sitting assigned to the examination of
Italian affairs, which had as little to do with the natural work of
the Congress as the affairs of China. The chief points discussed at
the secret sitting of the 8th of April were the foreign occupations in
Central Italy, and the state of the Roman and Neapolitian governments,
which was stigmatised by Lord Clarendon in terms much more severe than
Cavour himself thought it prudent to use. Count Buol, the chief
Austrian representative, grew very angry, and his opposition was
successful in reducing the sitting to a mere conversation; but what
had been said had been said, and Cavour prepared the way for his
future policy by remarking to everyone: 'You see that diplomacy can do
nothing for us; the question needs another solution.' Lord Clarendon's
vigorous support made him think for a moment that England might take
an active part in that other solution, and with this idea in his mind
he hurried over the Channel to see Lord Palmerston, but he left
England convinced that nothing more than moral assistance was ever to
be expected from that quarter. The Marquis Emmanuel d'Azeglio, who for
many years represented Sardinia, and afterwards Italy, at the Court of
St James, has placed it on record that the English Premier repeatedly
assured him that an armed intervention on behalf of Italian freedom
would have been much to his taste, but that the country would not have
been with him. It is certain that Cavour would have preferred an
English to a French alliance; as it was not to be had, he reposed his
sole hopes in the Emperor Napoleon, who had not the French people
really more with him in this matter than Lord Palmerston had the
English--nay, he had them less with him, for in England there would
have been a party of Italian sympathisers favourable to the war, and
in France, there was no one except Prince Napoleon and the workmen of
Paris. But the French Emperor was a despotic sovereign, and not the
Prime Minister of a self-governing country. After all, some good may
come out of despotism.

Upon Cavour's return to Turin, he received not only the approval of
the King and Parliament, but also congratulations from all parts of
Italy. H