536 



ITALY. 



of personal fascination which had given Ca- 

 vour such thorough control over those with 

 whom he came in contact. He utterly abhorred 

 everything like hribery and corruption, and 

 the indolence of the king, which led him to 

 yield to the solicitations of the unworthy to . 

 avoid trouble, drew down upon him more than 

 once the stern remonstrances of the honest and 

 upright minister, and led to a want of that per- 

 sonal sympathy between them so indispensable 

 to the successful administration of the govern- 

 ment. His colleagues, too, complained of his 

 haughty manners, and one of them, M. Ming- 

 hetti, Minister of the Interior, resigned in Sep- 

 tember, 1861. 



The French emperor found the premier as 

 incapable of being moulded to his purposes as 

 his predecessor had been, but he feared him 

 less than Cavour, and sought only the means 

 of covertly securing his overthrow. These 

 were, unhappily, not wanting. Among the 

 prominent political leaders of Italy, was the 

 cominendator Urban Eatazzi, a citizen of 

 Alexandria in Piedmont, educated by the Jes- 

 uits at Turin, and given to intrigue. This 

 man, who possessed considerable talent in po- 

 litical affairs, and the specious and adroit man- 

 ners which enabled him to force his way into 

 public notice, was a member of the first Sar- 

 dinian Parliament in 1848, and became a mem- 

 ber of Gioberti's cabinet the same year, and 

 having by an act of treason to that statesman, 

 who had intrusted him with his plans, pro- 

 cured the overthrow of the cabinet of which 

 ho was a member, succeeded in obtaining the 

 position of premier in the new cabinet which 

 succeeded, and as such, urged the unfortunate 

 Charles Albert on to the resumption of those 

 hostilities which culminated in the fatal battle 

 of Novara. Driven from power by this catas- 

 trophe, Eatazzi took his place in the opposi- 

 tion, watching for another opportunity of grasp- 

 ing the reins of government. In 1852, Cavour, 

 who knew how to use such men, procured his 

 election to the presidency of the Lower House 

 of the Parliament, and before the close of the 

 same year, becoming himself premier, gave 

 him a subordinate position in the cabinet. He 

 remained in this cabinet several years, being 

 finally promoted to the Home Secretaryship, 

 but was eventually driven to resign, from his 

 suspected complicity with men who were seek- 

 ing to overthrow the Piedmontese Government. 

 Cavour again procured his election to the pres- 

 idency of the Lower House, though he knew 

 that he had been intriguing to oust him from 

 the premiership. When, after the peace of 

 Villa Franca, Cavour resigned his position as 

 incompatible with honor, after the pledges 

 made to the Italian people had been violated 

 by their ally, the French emperor, Eatazzi, 

 who had assiduously courted the good will of 

 Napoleon III, pushed himself forward for the 

 premiership and was appointed to it by the 

 king. His whole career (of six months) was 

 one of obsequious servility to French dicta- 



tion, and of officious meddling with the affairs 

 of Lombardy, while all the overtures for union 

 with Sardinia and Tuscany, Modena, Parma 

 and the Eomagna were repelled. 



At last this cabinet fell, pushed from power 

 by the overwhelming conviction of its utter in- 

 capacity, and the vigorous hand of Cavour 

 again assumed the reins of government, only 

 to bo relinquished at his death. It would have 

 seemed that, after thrice being compelled to re- 

 sign in disgrace, Eatazzi would not have as- 

 pired again to power ; but such was his brazen 

 assurance that he again made himself promi- 

 nent. He had been reflected president of the 

 Lower House of Parliament, and while profess- 

 ing to sustain the administration of Eicasoli, 

 his whole thoughts were bent upon its over- 

 throw. For this purpose he ingratiated him- 

 self into the favor of the indolent king, and 

 craftily sought to bring about a feud between 

 him and his minister; during the vacation of 

 Parliament he made a journey to Paris, caus- 

 ing his creatures to give out that he was sent 

 on a secret mission from Victor Emanuel to 

 the French emperor ; while in Paris, he as- 

 sumed the airs, and received the honors due to 

 an envoy extraordinary ; Napoleon III under- 

 stood his man, and so far lent himself to his 

 purposes, as to manoeuvre for his succession to 

 the premiership. On his return to Turin, ho 

 sought the confidence of the radical party (the 

 followers of Garibaldi, who were disaffected 

 by what they regarded as the slowness of Ei- 

 casoli in securing the possession of Borne as 

 the capital). Eatazzi professed the utmost 

 sympathy for Garibaldi, and an earnest desire 

 to promote his plans, and finally pledged him- 

 self if the Eicasoli Cabinet was overthrown, 

 and he placed at the head of the new one, to 

 put two of Garibaldi's friends in the cabinet, 

 to appoint others prefects at such points as he 

 should request, and to aid the revolutionary 

 chief in his attack on Eome or Austria with 

 money and arms, and permit the raising of 

 corps of volunteers for that purpose throughout 

 Italy. To the French emperor and the French 

 party he promised to prevent any movement 

 to seize upon Eome, and offered to pledge his 

 cabinet in advance to take no measures for the 

 acquisition of that city, which, he said, Italy 

 did not need. To still another party, small in 

 numbers, but possessing considerable influence, 

 the party of the old Piedmontese aristocracy, 

 he avowed his hostility to territorial acquisi- 

 tion, and his determination to maintain a poli- 

 cy of centralization by which the institutions, 

 laws, and administration of the newly acquired 

 State should be made to conform to the Pied- 

 montese pattern, and their beloved Turin should 

 become to Italy what Paris was to France. He 

 had not neglected to subsidize the press in his 

 favor, not at his own cost, but at the king's, 

 and more than one prominent journal was filled 

 with his praises. 



It was in December, 1861, when all his 

 plans for Eicasoli's overthrow had been laid, 



