fortune.  It was for this that he chose the Ministry of Finance:  Piedmont, as he saw, could never sustain a national and Italian policy abroad without having first set its own house in order.  He started with two principles:  taxation must be increased and the resources of the country must be so developed as to enable it to pay its way without sinking into hopeless stagnation.  It was a disappointment to some to see Cavour devoting himself with more ardour to putting on new taxes than to producing any of those decorative schemes for hastening the millennium which are expected from a new and ambitious minister.  But, though ambitious, he cared for the substance, power—­not for the shadow, popularity.

If there had been no other reason for the compact with the moderate liberals, the necessity for fresh taxation would have been a sufficing one.  The Extreme Right and Left proposed to meet the existing difficulties by cutting down expenditure, but, if sound in theory, in practice this policy would have reduced Piedmont to complete impotence.  While a part of the Left Centre voted with the extremists, it was only by the greatest efforts that a grant of L100,000 was obtained for the fortifications of Casale, which had been declared by the war minister, La Marmora, to be absolutely necessary for the defence of the State.  The radical deputy Brofferio said that States wanted no other defence than the breasts of their citizens.  From the Chamber, as then constituted, there was little hope of obtaining the imposition of new burdens, in part designed to meet Sardinian liabilities, but in part also to render possible the reorganisation of the army, which was urgently required if the future was not to witness disasters worse than those already experienced.  Prince Metternich had said that, even if Piedmont were so troublesome as to persist in her liberal infatuation, she would have to keep quiet, at a moderate computation, for twenty years—­just the time which it took her king to unite Italy.  The two campaigns of 1848-1849 and the war indemnity had cost about 300,000,000 frs.  The annual expenditure was doubled.  Added to this, the one source of wealth, agriculture, was almost ruined by the oidium disease which destroyed the vines, and by harvests so bad that the like had not been seen since the celebrated scarcity which followed the wars of Napoleon.  As Cavour saved his father’s property not by burying the last talent in a safe place but by laying it out in bold improvements, so now he did not fear to spend largely and even lavishly, not only on the army, but also on public works.  He completed the railway system and employed what Brofferio called “a portentous activity” in extending the roads, canals, and all the means of communication which could stimulate industry.  It must be remembered that Piedmont was then lamentably backward; a long obscurantist regime, succeeded by war and havoc, had left her destitute of all the accessories of modern life.  This was changed as