The Proclamation produced a great effect, and the parliament which met on the 20th of December contained a working majority of men who were not only patriotic, but who were also endowed with common sense.  When the ratification of the peace came on for discussion, there was, indeed, one deputy who spoke in favour of immediate war, which, in a fortnight, was to effect the liberation, not only of Lombardy and Venetia, but also of Hungary, a speech worth recalling, as it shows how far madness will go.  The debate concluded with a vote authorising the King’s government to fully carry out the treaty of peace which was concluded at Milan on the 6th of August 1849, the ayes being 137 against 17 noes.  Piedmont had learnt the bitter but useful lesson, that if you play and lose, you must pay the cost.

He who had played and lost his crown had already paid the last fee to fortune.  Charles Albert was now a denizen of the Superga—­of all kings’ burial places, the most inspiring in its history, the most sublime in its situation.  Here Victor Amadeus, as he looked down on the great French army which, for three months, had besieged his capital, vowed to erect a temple if it should please the Lord of Hosts to grant him and his people deliverance from the hands of the enemy.  Five days later the French were in flight.  All the Alps, from Mon Viso to the Simplon, all Piedmont, and beyond Piedmont, Italy to the Apennines, can be scanned from the church which fulfilled the royal vow.

To the Superga the body of Charles Albert was brought from the place of exile.  Before the coffin, his sword was carried; after it, they led the war-horse he had ridden in all the battles.  After the war-horse followed a great multitude.  He had said truly that it was an opportune time for him to die.  The pathos of his end rekindled the affections of the people for the dynasty.

As in the Mosque of dead Sultans in Stamboul, so in the Mausoleum of the Superga, each sovereign occupied the post of honour only till the next one came to join him.  But the post of honour remains, and will remain, to Charles Albert.  His son lies elsewhere.

CHAPTER X

THE REVIVAL OF PIEDMONT

1850-1856

Restoration of the Pope and Grand Duke of Tuscany—­Misrule at
Naples—­The Struggle with the Church in Piedmont—­The Crimean War.

The decade from 1849 to 1859 may seem, at first sight, to resemble an interregnum, but it was an evolution.  There is no pause in the life of nations any more than in the life of individuals:  they go forward or they go backward.  In these ten years Piedmont went forward; the other Italian governments did not stand still, they went backward.  The diseases from which they suffered gained daily upon the whole body-politic, and even those clever foreign doctors who had been the most convinced that this or that remedy would set them on their feet, were in the end