It is evident that one thing he could not do. Whatever was in his thoughts, unless he was prepared to retire into private life then and there, he could not proclaim from the house-tops that he espoused the artichoke theory attributed to Victor Amadeus. There were only too many old diplomatists as it was, who sought to cripple Cavour's resources by reviving that story. The time was not come when, without manifest damage to the cause, he could plead guilty to the charge of preparing an Italian crown for his Sovereign. 'The rule in politics,' Cavour once observed, 'is to be as moderate in language as you are resolute in act.' At the end of 1855, Victor Emmanuel, with Cavour and Massimo d'Azeglio, paid a visit to the French and English Courts. He was received with more marked cordiality at the English Court than at the French. No Prince Charming, indeed, but the ideal of a bluff and burly Longobard chief, he managed to win the good graces of his entertainers, even if they thought him a trifle barbaric. The Duchess of Sutherland declared that of all the knights of St George whom she had ever seen, he was the only one who would have had the best of it in the fight with the dragon. The Queen rose at four o'clock in the morning to take leave of him. Cavour was so much struck by the interest which Her Majesty evinced in the efforts of Piedmont for constitutional freedom, that he did not hesitate to call her the best friend his country possessed in England. It is not generally known, but it is quite true, that Victor Emmanuel wished to contract a matrimonial alliance with the English royal family. He did not take Cavour into his confidence, but a high English personage was sounded on the matter, a hint being given to him to say nothing about it to the Count. The lady who might have become Queen of Italy was the Princess Mary of Cambridge. The negotiations were broken off because the young Princess would not hear of any marriage which would have required her living out of England.