When Garibaldi stood on Cape Faro, conqueror and liberator, clothed in a glory not that of Wellington or Moltke, but that of Arthur or Roland or the Cid Campeador; the subject of the gossip of the Arabs in their tents, of the wild horsemen of the Pampas, of the fishers in ice-bound seas; a solar myth, nevertheless certified to be alive in the nineteenth century—­Cavour understood that if he were left much longer single occupant of the field, either he would rush to disaster, which would be fatal to Italy, or he would become so powerful that, in the event of his being plunged, willingly or unwillingly, by the more ardent apostles of revolution into opposition with the King of Sardinia, the issue of the contest would be by no means sure.  To guard against both possibilities, Cavour decided to act, and to act at once.  He said of the conjuncture in which he was placed that it was not one of the most difficult, but the most difficult of his political life.  But he proved equal to the task, which does the more honour to his statesmanship because his first plan failed completely.  This plan was, that the Neapolitan population should overthrow Francis II., and proclaim Victor Emmanuel their King before Garibaldi crossed the Straits.  But the Neapolitans would not move hand or foot till Garibaldi was among them.  The fact that when Cavour was convinced that the Bourbon dynasty at Naples was about to fall, he tried to hasten its collapse by a few weeks or days, was made the most of by his enemies as an example of base duplicity.  At this distance of time, it need only be said that whether his conduct of affairs was scrupulous or unscrupulous, it deceived no one, for the Neapolitan King and his friends were well convinced that the Filibuster of Caprera was their less deadly foe than the Prime Minister of Piedmont.

But of all the foes of Franceschiello, to use the diminutive by which, half in pity, half in contempt, the people of Naples remember him, the most irrevocably fatal was himself.  Two courses were open to him when, after losing Sicily, he saw the loss of his other kingdom and of his throne staring him in the face.  One was to go forth like a man at the head of his troops to meet the storm.  There had been such a thing as loyalty in the Kingdom of Naples; not loyalty of the highest sort, but still the sentiment had existed.  Who knows what might not have been the effect of the presence of their young Sovereign on the broken moral of the Neapolitan soldiers?  ’Sire, place yourself at the head of the 40,000 who remain, and risk a last stake, or, at least, fall gloriously after an honourable battle,’ was the advice given him by his minister of war, Pianell.  But his stepmother or somebody (certainly not his wife) said that the sacred life of a king ought to be kept in cotton wool, like other curiosities.  Meanwhile his uncle, the Count of Syracuse, proposed the other course which, though not heroic, would have been intelligible and even patriotic.  This was to absolve his subjects from their obedience, and embark on the first available ship for foreign parts.  Fitting the action to the word, the Count himself started for Turin.  Francis awaited the doom of those who only know how to take half measures.