were rumours of stormy scenes between them on the subject of the arrest, and Victor Emmanuel had his way.  Whatever was their disagreement, it ceased when the die was cast.  It was one of Cavour’s chief merits that he instantly grasped a new situation.  To let the expedition go and then place obstacles in its way would have been an irreparable mistake.  Admiral Persano inquired whether he was to stop the steamers carrying the Thousand to Sicily, should stress of weather drive them into a Sardinian port?  The answer by telegraph ran, “The Ministry decides for the arrest.”  Persano rightly judged this to mean that Cavour decided against it, and he telegraphed back, “I have understood.”

Garibaldi sailed from Quarto late on May 5.  Not Cavour himself had thought worse of the plan than he when it was first proposed to him, but, with the decision to go, doubt vanished.  “At last,” he wrote, “I shall be back in my element—­action placed at the service of a great idea.”  No one seems to have pointed out the extraordinary boldness of choosing a fortified town of 18,000 inhabitants as the place of landing.  The leaders of similar expeditions have always selected some quiet spot where they could land undisturbed, and the coast of Sicily presents many such spots.  If Garibaldi had done the same he would have failed, for the success of the Thousand was a success of prestige.  Italian patriots at home had some uneasy days.  Victor Emmanuel, as he afterwards admitted, was in “a terrible fright”; Cavour went about silent and gloomy.  A week passed, and no news came.  On May 13, at eleven o’clock at night, a passer-by in the Via Carlo Alberto, not far from the Palazzo Cavour, heard some one gaily whistling the air

  “Di quella pira ...”

Of a sudden the individual, who was walking very quickly, vigorously rubbed his hands.  The trait revealed the man—­it was Cavour; he had just heard that Garibaldi, eluding the Neapolitan fleet, had disembarked with all his men at Marsala.  Things were entering a new and critical phase, and it was not difficult to foretell that, while the hero would have all the laurels, the statesman would have all the thorns.  This was a small matter to Cavour:  they were again on the high seas, he said cheerfully, but what was the good of thinking of peace and quiet till Italy was made?

The Sardinian Government adopted the policy of assisting the expedition now as far as they could without being compromised with the Powers of Europe—­but no farther.  This via media had the merit of succeeding; it was, however, severely criticised by friends and foes at the time.  On May 24 Prince Napoleon said in the presence of Marshal MacMahon, Prosper Merimee, N.W.  Senior, and others, that Cavour had done too much or too little; he should have kept Garibaldi back, or given him 5000 men; he had thrown on himself and on “my father-in-law” all the discredit of favouring the enterprise, and he would have been no more blamed and hated if he