Cavour had always said that an English alliance would be the only one without drawbacks.  Among these drawbacks he doubtless placed the melancholy necessity of ceding Piedmontese territory; but that was not all.  There was a peril which would have appeared to him yet more fatal than the lopping off of a limb, because it threatened the vital organs of national life:  the risk of an all-powerful French influence extending over Italy.  To ward off this danger it was of the greatest moment that Italians should join in their own liberation—­that not only the Government and the army but patriots of every condition should rally round the country’s flag.  Though Cavour has been often said to have lacked imagination, it needed the imaginative faculty to discern what would be the true value of the free corps which he decided to constitute under the name of the Hunters of the Alps.  With a promise of 200,000 Frenchmen in his pocket, he was yet ready to confront difficulties which he afterwards called “immense,” in order to place in the field a few thousand volunteers of whom the heads of the army declared that they would only prove an embarrassment.  Cavour listened to no one.  He sent for Garibaldi, then at Caprera, and having made sure of his enthusiastic co-operation, he carried out his project without asking the assent of Parliament and without flinching before the most violent opposition, internal and external.  Had not Cavour felt so conscious of his strength he would have been afraid of offending Napoleon by “arming the revolution”; but he knew that the best way to deal with men of the Emperor’s stamp is to show that you do not fear them.  Garibaldi, who never did anything by halves, placed himself and his influence absolutely at Cavour’s disposal.  “You can tell our friend that he is omnipotent,” he wrote to La Farina.  He begged the Government to assume despotic power till the issue was decided.  Garibaldi did not love the man of the coup d’etat; but he knew too much about war to miscalculate either the value or the need of the French alliance.  Only a small section of the republicans still stood aloof.  Cavour had Italy with him.  All felt what Massimo d’Azeglio expressed with generous expansion, “To-day it is no longer a question of discussing your policy, but of making it succeed.”  Cavour had torn open the letter with impatience, recognising the handwriting.  When he finished reading it his eyes were full of tears.  No one was more whole-hearted in his support of the minister who exacted of him two most bitter sacrifices than the king.  “The difficulty,” Cavour said, “is to hold him back, not to spur him on.”  The public, imperfectly informed of what was happening or going to happen, remained calm, for, at last, its faith in the helmsman was complete.  An amusing story is told of those times.  The Countess von Stackelberg, wife of the Russian minister at Turin, was buying something at a shop under the Porticoes, when the shopman suddenly left her and rushed to the door.  On coming back he said with excuses, “I saw Count Cavour passing, and wishing to know how our affairs are going on, I wanted to see how he looked.  He looks in good spirits, so everything is going right.”