That Cavour accepted the task is the highest proof of his abnegation as a statesman.  He was on the point of getting into his carriage to catch the train for Leri when the messenger reached the Palazzo Cavour with the royal command to go to the castle.  If he had refused office and returned to the congenial activity of his life as a country gentleman, his name would not be attached to the melancholy sacrifice which Napoleon was now determined to exact from Italy.  The French envoy, Baron de Talleyrand, whose business it was to communicate the unwelcome intelligence, arrived at Turin before the collapse of Rattazzi; but, on finding that a ministerial crisis was imminent, he deferred carrying out his mission till a more opportune moment.

On the 18th of January 1860, the Emperor admitted to Lord Cowley that, though there was as yet no arrangement between himself and Victor Emmanuel on the subject, he intended to have Savoy.  After the long series of denials of any such design, the admission caused the most indignant feeling in the English ministers and in the Queen, who wrote to Lord John Russell:  ‘We have been made regular dupes.’  She went on to say that the revival of the English Alliance, and the hymns of universal peace chanted in Paris on the occasion of the Commercial Treaty, had been simply so many blinds, ’to hide from Europe a policy of spoliation.’  Cavour came in for a part of the blame, as, during the war, he denied cognisance of the proposal to give up Savoy.  The best that can be said of that denial is, that it was diplomatically impracticable for one party in the understanding of Plombieres to make a clean breast of the truth, whilst the other party was assuring the whole universe that he was fighting for an idea.

When the war was broken off, Cavour fully expected that Napoleon, of whom he had the worst opinion, would then and there demand whole pay for his half service; and this had much to do with his furious anger at Villafranca; but later, in common with the best-informed persons, he believed that the claim was finally withdrawn.  When, however, Napoleon asked again for the provinces—­not as the price of the war, but of the annexations in Central Italy—­Cavour instantly came to the conclusion that, cost what it might (and he thought that, amongst other things, it would cost his own reputation and popularity), the demand must be granted.  Otherwise Italian unity would never be accomplished.

In considering whether he was mistaken, it must not be forgotten that the French troops were still in Italy.  Not to speak of those in Rome, Marshal Vaillant had five divisions of infantry and two brigades of cavalry in Lombardy up to the 20th of March 1860.  The engagement had been to send this army home as soon as the definite peace was concluded; why, then, was it still south of the Alps four months after?

In spite of this, however, and in spite of the difficulty of judging an act, all the reasons for which may not, even now, be in possession of the world, it is very hard indeed to pardon Cavour for having yielded Nice as well as Savoy to France.  The Nizzards were Italians as the lower class of the population is Italian still; they had always shown warm sympathy with the hopes of Italy, which could not be said of the Savoyards; and Nice was the birthplace of Garibaldi!