With the foreboding that this would be the last act of his political life, Cavour started on the mission which he had almost no choice but to assume, in spite of his extreme repugnance for the role of diplomatist.  A few days after his arrival in Paris he was informed that the Emperor, in concert with England, conceded the point as to placing the representative of Sardinia on the same footing as the others.  Though it does not seem to have struck Cavour, the sudden change of intention was evidently an involuntary tribute to himself:  how could such a man be treated as an inferior?  Only the form was won; the substance remained in doubt.  Lord Clarendon hinted to the Piedmontese plenipotentiary that he had “too much tact” to mix in discussions which did not concern him.  But Cavour was not discouraged.  With his usual quick rebound he was soon thoroughly braced up to the work before him.  As he began to see his way, he was rather spurred on than disconcerted by the chorus of dismal predictions which the Congress and his own part in it evoked at home.  Almost every notable man in Piedmont contributed his quota of melancholy vaticination, in which the note, “I told you so!” was already audible.  Who could plead Italy’s cause in a congress in which Austria had a voice?  Was there ever such midsummer madness?  “But we knew how it would be from the first.”

Cavour had said that he hated playing at diplomacy; but some of his smaller, as well as larger gifts, marked him out as a successful diplomatist.  He was watchful for little advantages.  All who could help the cause were enlisted in its service.  Thus he made a convert of a fair Countess, to whose charms Napoleon III was supposed not to be insensible.  Paris was full of notabilities whom he sought to turn into useful allies.  In a letter to the Marquis Emanuel d’Azeglio (the Sardinian Minister in London) he tells how he even “made up” to Lady Holland’s dog with such success that he got it to put its large paws on his new coat!  When the Marchioness of Ely arrived to be present on the part of the Queen at the birth of the Prince Imperial, Cavour, knowing her to be the Queen’s intimate correspondent, lost no time in paying his court to her; but in this instance an acquaintance begun from political motives ripened into real friendship on both sides.  A point which is worth observing is that, as minister, no one ever made less use of what may he called the influence of society than Cavour.  He never tried to make himself agreeable at Turin, least of all to the king.  For a long time he was considered haughty by those who did not know him, and arbitrary by those who did.  But abroad he underwent a change which probably came about from his revealing not less but more of his natural self.  “He has that petulance,” Massimo d’Azeglio said, “which is exactly what they like in Paris.”  Abroad he could give this quality freer play than in Italy, where vivacity offends in a serious man.  He charmed even those who did not share his opinions.