and the courage to brave criticism by a financial policy which would have been certainly indefensible if Piedmont alone was concerned, could have done what he did.  Meanwhile, on the whole, the economic state of the country improved in spite of heavy taxation:  the exports and imports increased; there were signs of industrial activity; agriculture revived.  Cavour was often bitterly blamed for favouring and sparing the landowning class, though whether he did this because he had estates at Leri, as his detractors alleged, or because agriculture must always be the most vital of all Italian interests, need not be discussed now.  Improved education stimulated enterprise.  That there was room for improvement may be supposed, when it is known that in 1848 the number of persons who could not read was three to one to the number of those who could.

The most severe phase in the financial difficulties was past when, at the beginning of 1858, Cavour consigned the exchequer to Lanza, assuming himself the Ministry of the Interior, which was vacant through the resignation of Rattazzi.  The breach between the two men, who were never in entire intellectual harmony, had been growing inevitable for some months.  It was final; Cavour resolved never again to have Rattazzi for a colleague.  The elections of the autumn before, which Cavour thought that Rattazzi had mismanaged, lessened his confidence in him; but the actual cause of their rupture was briefly this.  Cavour wished to put an end to the king’s relations with the Countess Mirafiori, whom he married by the rite of the Church during his serious illness near Pisa in 1868—­an interference in the private affairs of the sovereign which, though inspired by regard for the decorum of the Crown, must be admitted to have been unwise, as (amongst other reasons) it was certain not to attain its object.  In this matter Cavour thought that Rattazzi ought to have stood by him, instead of which he took the part of the deeply offended king, who went so far as to say that only his position and his duty to the country prevented him from challenging his prime minister then and there.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PACT OF PLOMBIERES

Time seems long to those who wait.  The thrill of expectancy that passed through Italy after the Congress of Paris was succeeded by the nervous tension that seizes people whose ears are strained to catch some sound which never comes.  Especially in Lombardy there was a feeling of great depression:  no one trusted now in revolution, which the watchfulness of the Austrians made as impossible as their careless belief in their own invulnerability had made it possible in 1848.  The years went by, and help from without appeared farther off than ever.  Meanwhile every interest suffered, and life was rendered wellnigh intolerable by the ceaseless antagonism between government and governed.  This was the state of things when