The Great Powers had presented to the Court of Rome in 1831 a memorandum, in which various moderate reforms and improvements were proposed as urgently necessary to put an end to the intolerable abuses which were rife in the states of the Church, and, most of all, in Romagna. The abolition of the tribunal of the Holy Office, the institution of a Council of State, lay education, and the secularisation of the administration were among the measures recommended. In 1845 a certain Pietro Renzi collected a body of spirited young men at San Marino, and made a dash on Rimini, where he disarmed the small garrison. The other towns were not prepared, and Renzi and his companions were obliged to retire into Tuscany; but the revolution, partial as it had been, raised discussion in consequence of the manifesto issued by its promoters, in which a demand was made for the identical reforms vainly advocated by European diplomacy fourteen years before. If these were granted, the insurgents engaged to lay down their arms. The manifesto was written by Luigi Carlo Farini, who was destined to play a large part in future affairs. It proved to Europe that even the most conservative elements in the nation were driven to revolution by the sheer hopelessness of the dead-lock which the Italian rulers sought by every means to prolong. Massimo d'Azeglio, who was then known only as a painter of talent and a writer of historical novels, first made his mark as a politician by the pamphlet entitled _Gli ultimi casi di Romagna_, in which his arguments derived force from the fact that, when travelling in the district, he had done all in his power to induce the Liberals to keep within the bounds of legality. But he confessed that, when someone says: 'I suffer too much,' it is an unsatisfactory answer to retort: 'You have not suffered enough.' Massimo d'Azeglio had lived for many years an artist's life in Rome and the country round, where his aristocratic birth and handsome face made him popular with all classes. The transparent integrity of his nature overcame the diffidence usually inspired by strangers among a somewhat suspicious people, and he got to know more thoroughly than any other North Italian the real aspirations of the Pope's subjects. He listened to their complaints and their plans, and if they asked his advice, he invariably replied: 'Let us speak clearly. What is it that you wish and I with you? You wish to have done with priestly rule, and to send the Teutons out of Italy? If you invite them to decamp, they will probably say, "No, thank you!" Therefore you must use force; and where is it to be had? If you have not got it, you must find somebody who has. In Italy who has it, or, to speak more precisely, who has a little of it? Piedmont, because it, at least, enjoys an independent life, and possesses an army and a surplus in the treasury.' His friends answered: 'What of Charles Albert, of 1821, of 1832?' Now,