He preferred the flats and fogs of Leri to the scenery of
the Bay of Naples; but in politics he did not acquire the feelings
of an Italian: he was born with them. It has been said that he
aggrandised Piedmont; it would be truer to say that he sacrificed it.
For years he drained its resources; he sent its soldiers to die in the
Crimea; he exposed it again and again to the risk of invasion: he tore
from it two of its fairest provinces. But there was one thing that he
would not do; he would not dethrone Turin to begin a new "regionalism"
elsewhere. At Rome alone the history of the Italian municipalities
would become the history of the Italian nation.
Cavour deliberately departed from his usual rule of letting events
shape themselves when he pledged himself and the monarchy to the
policy of making Rome the capital. In October 1860 he said from his
place in parliament that it was a grave thing for a minister to
pronounce his opinion on the great questions of the future, but a
statesman worthy of the name ought to have certain fixed points by
which he steered his course.
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