much attached to his illustrious minister Cavour. The genius and soul of Cavour were too oppressively imperial, high-reaching, and energetic for the homely, plodding King. With all his external levity Count Cavour was terribly in earnest, and he must often have seemed a dreadful bore to his sovereign. Cavour knew himself the master, and did not always take pains to conceal his knowledge. He would sometimes adopt the most direct and vigorous language in remonstrating with the King if the latter did not act on valuable advice at the right moment. Sometimes, when things went decidedly against Cavour's wishes, the minister would take the monarch to task more roundly than even the most good-natured monarchs are likely to approve. When Napoleon the Third disappointed Cavour and all Italy by the sudden peace of Villafranca, I have heard that Cavour literally denounced Victor Emanuel for consenting to the arrangement. Count Arrivabene, an able writer, has given a very vivid and interesting description of Cavour's demeanor when he reached the Sardinian headquarters on his way to an interview with the King and learned what had been done. He was literally in a "tearing rage." He tore off his hat and dashed it down, he clenched his hands, he stamped wildly, gesticulated furiously, became red and purple, foamed at the mouth, and grew inarticulate for very passion. He believed that he and Italy were sold--as indeed they were; and it was while this temper was yet on him that he went to see the King, and denounced him, as I have said. Now this sort of thing certainly could not have been agreeable to Victor Emanuel; and yet he patiently accepted Cavour as a kind of glorious necessity. He never sought, as many another king in such _duresse_ would have done, to weaken his minister's influence and authority by showing open sullenness and dissatisfaction. Ratazzi, with his pliable ways and his entire freedom from any wearisome earnestness or devotion to any particular cause, was naturally a far more companionable and agreeable minister for the King than the untiring and imperious Cavour. Accordingly, it was well known that Ratazzi was more of a personal favorite; but the King never seems to have acted otherwise than loyally and honestly toward Cavour. Ricasoli was all but intolerable to the King. Ricasoli was proud and stern; and he was, moreover, a somewhat rigid moralist, which Cavour hardly professed to be. The King writhed under the government of Ricasoli, and yet, despite all that was at the time whispered, he cannot, I think, be fairly accused of having done anything personally to rid himself of an obnoxious minister. Indeed, the single merit of Victor Emanuel's character, if we put aside the element of personal courage, is its rough integrity. He is a _galantuomo_, an honest man--in that sense, a man of his word. He gave his word to constitutional government and to Italy, and he appears to have kept the word in each case according to his lights.