An inferior statesman who, like Cavour, contemplated foreign aid as
an ultimate resource, would have lost his interest and slackened his
activity in home politics. It was not so with him. Before all other
things he placed the necessity of consolidating Piedmont as a
constitutional State, and of preparing her morally and materially to
take her part in the struggle when it came. If that were not done,
a new Bonaparte might indeed cross the Alps in the character of
liberator, but a free Italy would be no more the result of his
intervention than it had been of his uncle's. Cavour was meditating
the stroke of policy which gave him the power to carry out this work
of consolidation and preparation. He ruled the ministry, but he did
not rule the House and, through it, the country. The Sardinian Chamber
of Deputies was composed of the Right Centre, the Extreme Right, the
Left Centre, and the Extreme Left. The Extreme Right was loyal to the
House of Savoy, but contrary to Italian aspirations; the Extreme Left
was strongly Italian, but the degree of its loyalty was hit off in
Massimo d'Azeglio's _mot_ "Viva Vittorio, il re provisorio" ("Long
live Victor, the provisional king").
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