the Sardinian plenipotentiary should be received on an equality with the representatives of the great Powers.  Cavour knew that this condition had been explicitly refused; to please Austria, France and England declared that Sardinia would only be invited to share in those sittings of the Congress which affected her interests.  Cavour did not let D’Azeglio know of the refusal; it was a case of the “tortuous ways of Count Cavour,” of which the Prince Consort complained some years later.  Cavour was scrupulous about the principles which he considered vital, but in dealing with men, and especially in dealing with his old colleague, he made more mental reservations than a severe moralist would allow.  In the present instance the deception failed, for D’Azeglio, seized at the last moments with suspicions, insisted on seeing the diplomatic notes which had been exchanged relative to the Congress.  In reading these, he discovered the true state of affairs, and in a violent fit of anger he refused to go.  This incident was the sole cause of the departure of Cavour himself in the place of his indignant nominee.  So are rough-hewn ends shaped.

In January, just before the armistice, Cavour had sent the memorandum on what could be done by the Emperor for Italy, which Napoleon authorized him to write when he was in Paris.  The first draft of the document was written by D’Azeglio, in whose literary style Cavour felt more faith than in his own; but this was not used.  It was “magnificent,” Cavour said, but “too diffuse and long.”  With the Emperor it was needful to put everything in the most concrete form, and to take a general view of all the hypotheses, except war with Austria, which, “for the present,” did not enter into his ideas.  D’Azeglio was offended at the rejection of his work.  He wrote complainingly, “I may be called a fool about everything else, Amen; but about Italy, no!” The memorandum actually sent was short and moderate in tone, the chief point recommended being the evacuation of Bologna by the Austrians.  It has been sometimes quoted in order to convict Cavour, at this period, of having held poor and narrow views of the future of Italy.  But a man who is mounting a stair does not put his foot on the highest step first.  At this stage in his political life most of Cavour’s biographers pause to discuss the often-put question, Was he already aiming at Italian unity?  Perhaps the best answer is, that really it does not matter.  To be very anxious to prove the affirmative is to misunderstand the grounds on which we may call Cavour one of the greatest of statesmen.  Those grounds are not what he hoped to do, but what he did.  He was not a Prometheus chained to a rock, who hopes till hope creates the thing it contemplates.  Constitutionally he was easily discouraged.  In the abstract he rather exaggerated difficulties than minimised them; but in the face of any present obstacle an invincible confidence came over him in his power to surmount