Though the
schoolboy essay above mentioned was kept a secret, the liberal
heresies of the young lieutenant were well enough known. He was told
that he would bring father and mother in sorrow to the grave, and he
was even threatened with banishment to America. The police watched
his movements. He wrote to his Swiss uncle that he had no right to
complain as he was liberal and very liberal and desired a complete
change in the whole system. On Charles Albert's accession to the
throne he was sent to the solitary Alpine fortress of Bard; but
it appears that not the king (as he supposed) but his own father
suggested the step. Cavour saw in the idleness and apathy of garrison
life in this lonely place a type of the disease from which the whole
State was suffering. He wrote to the Count de Sellon, the apostle of
universal peace, that much as he abhorred bloodshed, he could think of
no cure but war. "The Italians need regeneration; their _moral_, which
was completely corrupted under the ignoble dominion of Spaniards and
Austrians, regained a little energy under the French _regime_, and
the ardent youth of the country sighs for a nationality; but to break
entirely with the past, to be born anew to a better state, great
efforts are necessary and sacrifices of all kinds must remould the
Italian character.
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