218 ACCESSION OF THE SARDINIAN AKMY. chap, and his counsels at this time were guided by a VII Minister of rare sagacity, who perceived that an object so great, yet also so perturbing to Europe, was one wholly out of the reach of common, hand- to-mouth statesmanship, and could only be ac- complished, if ever accomplished at all, by what, as distinguished from 'statesmanship,' may per- haps be called far-sighted statecraft. When England and France had taken up arms against Russia, Count Cavour — with some aid, it would seem, from the clear-seeing mind of a woman * — made bold to adopt a policy which appeared at first sight highly venturesome, and by many per- haps would be treated as somewhat unscrup- ulous ; ( 2 ) but, so far as concerned its policy, he at least knew how to support it by a fair show of reasoning. He argued that sooner or later, the war, as matter of course, would be followed by a treating for peace in which the belligerents, all of them, would naturally have to take part, and that therefore, if the ICing of Sardinia were simply to take the step of declaring war against Nicholas, he too (by his Minister) would be neces- sarily present in Congress, and there by mere utterance of the name of ' Italy ' might already be advancing her cause ; whilst also, if furnishing troops to fight side by side with those of the Western Powers, he might earn a clear right to have their goodwill, and deserve it indeed all the
- Cavour's niece, the Countess Alfieri. I owe my know
ledge of this to Mr Hayward. See in his Biographical Essays the one on Count Cavour.
