The obsequiousness of the leading politicians at that juncture must have given Crispi a savage satisfaction for the contumely he had had to suffer in 1891, and there is no kind of question in my mind that, if he had then insisted as a sine qua non on a dictatorship, he would have had it with the almost universal approbation of Italians out of office and the acquiesence of those who hoped to be in it.  Cavalotti, his most implacable opponent and personal enemy in disguise, in a session of the Chamber made a passionate appeal to him to avoid Sonnino and take a ministry of one color, i.e. the Left, promising his entire devotion on such a concession.  The hostility was sullen and masked, but purely parliamentary; the country at large would have been delighted to see the old man sweep the parliament out of existence, and I am convinced that he might then have played the rôle of Cromwell and received the support of nine tenths of all Italians.  The Chamber had become nauseous to the nation.

I was cool enough to see that the key of the position was finance, for I knew that Crispi would make short work with the insurrection, and I knew also the full value of all the possible ministers of finance in the country, and their influence abroad.  When I saw that the constitution of the cabinet really hung on the disposition of that portfolio, I did not hesitate to say to Crispi that, while I could not pretend to any judgment as to the formation of the ministry at large, I could assure him that if there was to be a rehabilitation of the financial position of Italy abroad by his ministry, it could only be by the appointment of Sonnino to the Treasury.  I said to him in so many words that Sonnino was as necessary to the restoration of the credit of the financial situation as he himself was to that of order.  The pressure in the Chamber was very great to induce him to take the finance minister from the Left and so move toward the constitution of the government in accordance with the color of the majority, and Crispi was urged that way by most of his oldest and most faithful adherents, either unconscious of or indifferent to the influence of financial opinion through Europe on the stability or success of the ministry.  I could see that he was hesitating and that the idea of reconstituting parties, which had always been one of his most cherished and important schemes, was very present with him, but I think that the conviction of the necessity of the restoration of the confidence of the financial publics of Europe finally prevailed with him, for he decided to offer the Treasury to Sonnino, to whose measures he subsequently gave the most thorough and loyal support, though some of them were the reverse of popular and not of possible effectuation without his earnest support.  It is possible that my advice turned the balance in his mind, but it is, with one later exception, the only instance in which I ever ventured to advise him as to a political line of conduct, though I was generally credited with a good deal of meddling.