these things. The disappointment of the discovery did not count for
nothing in the difficulties of that period; it counts for everything
in the difficulties of this.

The reorganisation of the southern provinces proceeded very slowly. The
post of Lieutenant-Governor was successively conferred on L.C. Farini,
Prince Eugene of Carignano, and Count Ponza di San Martino; for a short
time Cialdini was invested with the supreme civil as well as military
power. None of these changes met with entire success. The government was
sometimes too weak, sometimes too arbitrary; of the great number of
Piedmontese officials distributed through the south, a few won general
approval, but the majority betrayed want of knowledge and tact, and were
judged accordingly. It was a misfortune for the new administration that
it was not assisted by the steam power of moral enthusiasm which
appeared and disappeared with Garibaldi. There is a great amount of
certainty that the vast bulk of the population desired union with Italy;
but it is equally certain that the new Government, though not without
good intentions, began by failing to please anybody, and the seeds of
much future trouble were planted.

On the 18th of February 1861, the first Italian legislature assembled
at Turin in the old Chamber, where, by long years of patient work and
self-sacrificing fidelity to principle, the possibility of
establishing an Italian constitutional monarchy had been laboriously
tested and established. Only the deputies of Rome and Venice were
still missing. The first act of the new parliament was to pass an
unanimous vote to the effect that Victor Emmanuel and his heirs should
assume the title of King of Italy. The Italian kingdom thus
constituted was recognised by England in a fortnight, by France in
three months, by Prussia in a year, by Spain in four years, by the
Pope never.

After the merging of Naples in the Italian body-politic, one of the
thorniest questions that arose was the disposal of the Garibaldian
forces. The chief implored Victor Emmanuel to receive his comrades
into his own army, a prayer which the King had not the power, even if
he had the will, to grant, as in the constitutional course of things
the decision was referred to the ministers, who, again, were crippled
in their action by the military authorities at Turin. Though it is
natural to sympathise with Garibaldi in his eagerness to obtain
generous terms for his old companions-in-arms, it