What a chance Victor Emanuel had of being a hero of romance! No king perhaps ever had such a chance before, and missed it so persistently. Europe seemed at one time determined, whether he would or no, to make a hero, a knight, a _preux chevalier_, out of the son of Charles Albert. Not Charles Edward, the brilliant, unfortunate Stuart himself, not Gustavus Adolphus even seemed to have been surrounded by such a romantic rainbow of romance and of hope. When, after the crowning disaster of Novara, Victor Emanuel's weak, vacillating, unlucky, and not very trustworthy father abdicated the crown of Sardinia in favor of his son, the latter seemed in the eyes of liberal Europe to represent not merely the hopes of all true Italians, but the best hopes of liberty and progress all over the world. There was even then a vague idea afloat through Europe--although Europe did not know how Cavour had already accepted the idea as a principle of action--that with her tremendous defeats Piedmont had won the right to hoist the standard of one Italy. This then was the cause which the young King was taken to represent. He had been baptized in blood to that cause. He represented Italy united and free--free from Austrian and Pope, from political and religious despotism. He was at all events no carpet knight. He had fought bravely on more than one fearful field of battle; he had looked on death closely and undismayed; he had been wounded in fighting for Italy against the Austrian. It was said of the young sovereign--who was only Duke of Savoy then--that on the night of Novara, when all was over save retreat and humiliation, he shook his dripping sword at the ranks of the conquering Austrians and exclaimed, "Italy shall make herself for all that!" Probably the story is substantially true, although Victor Emanuel may perhaps have used stronger expressions if he spoke at all; for no one ever doubted his courage and coolness in the hour of danger. But true or not, the anecdote exactly illustrated the light in which the world was prepared to regard the young sovereign of Sardinia--as the hope of Italy and of freedom, the representative of a defeat which he was determined and destined to convert into a victory.