How his proposal was received shows the difficulties with which he had to contend from the outset.  The more moderate members of the meeting thought that he had taken leave of his senses.  This was natural.  Less natural was the tooth and nail opposition of Valerio, who declared that a constitution much exceeded the desires of the people, and that a petition for it would only frighten the king.  He carried all the radicals with him except Brofferio, an honest patriot and the writer of charming poems in the Piedmontese dialect, which gave him a great popularity.  Brofferio was an ultra-democrat, but he was no party man, and he had the courage to walk over to the unpopular editor of the Risorgimento with the remark, “I shall always be with those who ask the most.”  Valerio made no secret among his private friends of the real reasons of his conduct.  What was the good of wasting efforts on some sort of English constitution, perhaps with a House of Lords and other such abominations?  Was it likely that anything worth having would be excogitated by Milord Camillo, the greatest reactionary in the kingdom, the sworn foe of revolution, “un Anglomane pur sang?” A constitution could only check the revolution and stifle the legitimate aspirations of the people.  The nickname of “Milord Camillo” or “Milord Risorgimento” was in everyone’s mouth when speaking of Cavour.

A short time sufficed to show not only the expediency but the necessity of granting a constitution, and that at once.  Events never moved so fast as in the first two months of 1848.  The throne of Louis Philippe was tottering, and, with the exception of the Duke of Modena, the princelings of Italy snatched the plank of safety of a statute with the alacrity of drowning men.  In this crisis Charles Albert thought of abdication.  Besides the known causes of his hesitancy, there was one then unknown:  the formal engagement, invented by Metternich and forced upon him by his uncle Charles Felix, to govern the country as he found it governed.  He called the members of the royal family together and informed them that if there must be a constitution there must, but the decree which bestowed it would be signed by his son.  The queen and the Duchess of Savoy, who were both extremely afraid of him, sat in silence; the handsome Duke of Genoa tried to prove that constitutions were not such dreadful things; Victor Emmanuel opposed his intention of abdicating in resolute terms.  Then he summoned a high ecclesiastic, who succeeded in convincing him that it would be a greater sin to abandon his people in their need than to break a promise he could no longer maintain.  After mortifying the flesh with fasts and vigils, he yielded, and the famous decree bore the signature “C.  Alberto” after all,—­not written indeed in the king’s usually beautiful character, but betraying rather a trembling hand, which nevertheless registered a great because a permanent fact.  This was not the prelude to perjury and expulsion.  Around the Sardinian statute were united the scattered limbs of Italy, and after fifty years Charles Albert’s grandson commemorated its promulgation at the Capitol.