He assured his Council that Italy was ready to rise on either side of the Po. He explained his mistrust of the Congress. He agreed that, although it would be unsafe to diminish the army in the present condition of Europe, yet Naples could not support the troops unless fresh taxes were imposed; and that being out of the question, the only alternative was to quarter them upon somebody else. He went on to point out that political liberty was at the last gasp in Italy. But even that battle-cry failed to arouse the enthusiasm of his audience. Political liberty, as a theory upon which to speculate over a glass or two of wine in the cool of the evening, was well enough, but political liberty as a reason for draining the country of blood and money any longer was quite another affair. The common people cared very little, if anything at all, for it; what they wanted was food and drink, and a chance to save a little money, and marry, and be happy. The taste survives in Calabria to this day. They _like_ an overlord, they _like_ having somebody over them who will order their ways and provide them with work and see to their well-being, and knock their heads together when they misbehave and pat them upon the back before their fellows when they are good. It is, after all, the ideal form of Government. No other approaches in efficiency to a beneficent and intelligent autocracy. The main trouble is that very few autocracies have any intelligence. I am sure I do not know why. Logically a man who has been trained to rulership from the cradle should make a better ruler than the accident of a convention; and on the whole, one may say, he does. The Emperor of Germany, for instance, is a far better ruler than either Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Taft, or Mr. Wilson, or any President of the French Republic that ever lived. So was King Edward VII, so was Queen Victoria; but then, from nowhere in particular and without any training at all, a Lincoln emerges and gets elected—that is the mystery which I have never been able to fathom—by a number of people whose individual opinions upon any subject of real importance are worth less than nothing! Murat, as has been seen, made a habit of mistaking craft for statesmanship, and his Council, by now, were beginning to be aware of it. Frenchmen and Neapolitans, they saw that would be extremely dangerous for both countries—particularly Naples—and they resolved to wait to declare themselves until word came from London and Vienna. Murat, however, paid no heed to their resolution or their opinion, and broke up the Council, secretly determined to make the effort.