poem, was going “to save the world.”  The Good, the True, the Beautiful, were about to dislodge the Bad, the False, the Ugly.  If all these high hopes had some fruition in the region of thought, they had none in the region of facts, but meanwhile they lent a rare charm to Paris in the Thirties.  Cavour speaks of elasticity as the ruling quality of French society; he praises the admirable union of science and wit, depth and amiability, substance and form, to be found in certain Parisian salons and nowhere else.  He was thinking especially of the salon of Mme. de Circourt, who became his friend through life.  For no one else had he quite the same unchanging regard.  Attracted as he always was by the conquest of difficulties, he admired the force of mind and will by which this Russian lady, whom a terrible accident had made a hopeless invalid, overcame disabilities that would have reduced most people to a state of living death.  In her, spirit annihilated matter.  She joined French vivacity to the penetrating sensibility of the Sclavonic races, and she was a keen reader of character.  Cavour interested her at once.  Even in his exterior, the young Italian, with blond hair and blue eyes, was then more attractive than those who only knew the Cavour of later years could easily believe; while his gay and winning manners, combined with a fund of information on subjects not usually popular with the young, could not but strike so discerning a judge as the Countess de Circourt as indicating not a common personality.  She feared lest so much talent and promise would be suffocated for ever in the stifling air of a small despotism.  Cavour himself drew a miserable picture of his country:  science and intelligence were reputed “infernal things by those who are obliging enough to govern us”; a triumphant bigotry trembled alike at railways and Rosmini; Cavour’s aunt, the Duchess de Clermont Tonnerre, only got permission to receive the Journal des Debats after long negotiations between the French minister at Turin and the Sardinian government.  No wonder if Mme. de Circourt impulsively entreated the young man to shake the dust of Piedmont off his feet and to seek a career in France.  In his answer to this proposition, he asks first of all, what have his parents done that he should plunge a knife into their hearts?  Sacred duties bound him to them, and he would never quit them till they were separated by the grave.  This filial piety stands the more to Cavour’s credit, as his home life had not been very happy.  He went on to inquire, what real inducement was there for him to abandon his native land?  A literary reputation?  Was he to run after a little celebrity, a little glory, without ever reaching the real goal of his ambition?  What influence could he exercise in favour of his unhappy brothers in a country where egotism monopolised the high places?  What was the mass of foreigners doing which had been thrown into Paris by choice or misfortune?  Who among them was useful to his fellow-men?