the brilliancy of his hopes still surrounded him, King Victor Emanuel
visited England. He was welcomed everywhere with a cordiality of
personal interest and admiration not often accorded by any people to a
foreign king. Decidedly it was a hard thing to look at him and yet
retain the thought of a hero of romance. He was not then nearly so
bloated and burly as he is now; and he was at least some dozen or
fourteen years younger. But even then how marvellously ill-favored he
was; how rough and coarse-looking; how unattractive in manner; how
brusque and uncouth in gesture and bearing; how liable to fits of an
apparently stolid silence; how utterly devoid of grace and dignity! His
huge straw-colored moustache, projecting about half a foot on each side
of his face, was as unsightly a piece of manly decoration as ever royal
countenance displayed. Yet the public tried to forget all those external
defects and still regard him as a hero of romance somehow, anyhow. So
fully was he believed to be a representative of civil and religious
freedom in Italy, that one English religious society of some kind--I
forget which it was--actually went the length of presenting an address
to him, in which they flourished about the errors of Popery as freely as
if they were appealing to an Oliver Cromwell or Frederick the Great.
Cavour gave them very neatly and tersely the snub that their ignorance
and presumption so well deserved; and their address did not obtain an
honored place among Victor Emanuel's memorials of his visit to England.
He was very hospitably entertained by Queen Victoria, who is said to
have suffered agonies of martyrdom from her guest's everlasting
cigar--the good soul detests tobacco as much as King James himself
did--and even more from his occasional outbursts of roystering
compliment and canteen love-making toward the ladies of her staid and
modest court. One of the household edicts, I think, of Queen Elizabeth's
court was that no gallant must "toy with the maids, under pain of
fourpence." Poor Victor Emanuel's slender purse would have had to bear a
good many deductions of fourpence, people used to hint, if this penal
decree had prevailed in his time at Windsor or Osborne. But Queen
Victoria was very patient and friendly. Cavour has left some pleasant
descriptions of her easy, unaffected friendliness toward himself.
Guizot, it will be remembered, has described her as the stiffest of the
stiff, freezing into petrifaction a whole silent circle by her
invincible coldness and formality. I cannot pretend to reconcile the
conflicting accounts of these two eminent visitors, but certainly Cavour
has drawn some animated and very attractive pictures of Queen Victoria's
almost girlish good-humor and winning familiarity. However that may be,
the whole heart of free England warmed to Victor Emanuel, and was ready
to dub him in advance the chosen knight of liberty, the St. George of
Italy, before whose resistless sword every dragon of despotism and
superstition was to grovel in the dust.
So the King went his way, and the next thing the world heard of him was
that he was in league with Louis Napoleon against the Austrian, and that
the child his daughter was to be married to the obese and elderly Prince
Napoleon, whose eccentric genius, varied accomplishments, and thrilling
eloquence were then unrecognized and unknown. Then came the triumphs of
Magenta and Solferino, and it was made plain once more to the world
that Victor Emanuel had the courage of a true soldier. He actually took
a personal share of the fighting when the Italians were in action. He
did not sit on his horse, far away from the bullets, like his imperial
ally, and direct the movements of the army by muttering "_C'est bien_,"
when an aide-de-camp galloped up to announce to him as a piece of solemn
farce that this or that general had already accomplished this or that
operation. No; Victor Emanuel took his share of the fighting like a
king. In the affair of San Martino he led an attack himself, and
encouraged his soldiers by bellowing in stentorian voice quite a clever
joke for a king, just as he was about to charge. A crack regiment of
French Zouaves (the French Zouaves were soldiers in those days) was so
delighted with the Sardinian King that it elected him a corporal of the
regiment on the field of battle--a quite wonderful piece of compliment
from a Zouave regiment to a foreign sovereign. Not so long before had
Lamoriciere declared that "Italians don't fight," and here was a crack
Zouave regiment enthusiastic about the fighting capacity of an Italian
King. The irony of fate, it will be remembered, decreed soon after that
Lamoriciere should himself lay down his arms before an Italian general
and Italian soldiers.
Out of that war, then, Victor Emanuel emerged still a hero. But the
world soon began to think that he was only a hero in the field. The sale
of Savoy and Nice much shocked the public sentiment of Europe. The house
of Savoy, as an English orator observed, had sprung from the womb of the
mountains which the unworthy heir of Savoy sold to a stranger. As the
world had given to Victor Emanuel the credit of virtues which he never
possessed, it was now ready to lay on him all the burden of deeds which
were not his. Whether the cession of Savoy was right or wrong, Victor
Emanuel was not to blame, under the hard circumstances, for withdrawing,
according to the first Napoleon's phrase, "_sous les draps d'un roi
constitutionnel_," and allowing his ministers to do the best they could.
In fact, the thing was a necessity of the situation. Napoleon the Third
had to make the demand to satisfy his own people, who never quite
"seemed to see" the war for Italy. The Sardinian ministers had to yield
to the demand to satisfy Napoleon the Third. Had Prussia been a raw,
weak power in September, 1866, she must have ceded some territory to
France. Sardinia or Italy was raw and weak in 1860, and had no choice
but to submit. There were two things to be said for the bargain. First,
Italy got good value for it. Next, the Savoyards and Nizzards never were
good Italians. They rather piqued themselves on not being Italians. The
Savoy delegates would not speak Italian in the old Turin Parliament. The
ministers had to answer their French "interpellations" in French.
Still all this business did an immense harm to the reputation of King
Victor Emanuel. He had acted like a quiet, sensible man--not in any way
like a hero of romance, and Europe desired to see in him a hero of
romance. Then he did not show himself, people said, very grateful to
Garibaldi when the latter opened the way for the expulsion of the
Bourbons from Naples, and did so much to crown Victor Emanuel King of
Italy. Now I am a warm admirer of Garibaldi. I think his very weaknesses
are noble and heroic. There is carefully preserved among the best
household treasures of my family a vine leaf which Garibaldi once
plucked and gave me as a _souvenir_ for my wife. But I confess I should
not like to be king of a new monarchy partly made by Garibaldi and with
Garibaldi for a subject. The whole policy of Garibaldi proceeded on the
gallant and generous assumption that Italy alone ought to be able to
conquer all her enemies. We have since seen how little Italy availed
against a mere fragment of the military power of Austria--that power
which Prussia crushed like a nutshell. Events, I think, have vindicated
the slower and less assuming policy of Victor Emanuel, or, I should say,
the policy which Victor Emanuel consented to adopt at the bidding of
Cavour.
But all the same the _prestige_ of Victor Emanuel was gone. Then Europe
began to look at the man coolly, and estimate him without glamour and
without romance. Then it began to listen to the very many stories
against him which his enemies could tell. Alas! these stories were not
all untrue. Of course there were grotesque and hideous exaggerations.
There are in Europe some three or four personages of the highest rank
whom scandal delights to assail, and of whom it tells stories which
common sense and common feeling alike compel us to reject. It would be
wholly impossible even to hint at some of the charges which scandal in
Europe persistently heaped on Victor Emanuel, the Emperor Napoleon III.,
Prince Napoleon, and the reigning King of the Netherlands. If one-half
the stories told of these four men were true, then Europe would hold at
present four personages of the highest rank who might have tutored
Caligula in the arts of recondite debauchery, and have looked down on
Alexander the Sixth as a prudish milksop. But I think no reasonable
person will have much difficulty in sifting the probable truth out of
the monstrous exaggerations. No one can doubt that Victor Emanuel is a
man of gross habits and tastes, and is, or was, addicted to coarse and
ignoble immoralities. "The manners of a mosstrooper and the morality of
a he goat," was the description which my friend John Francis Maguire,
the distinguished Roman Catholic member of the House of Commons, gave,
in one of his Parliamentary speeches, of King Victor Emanuel. This was
strong language, and it was the language of a prejudiced though honest
political and religious partisan; but it was not, all things considered,
a very bad description. Moreover, it was mildness, it was
compliment--nay, it was base flattery--when compared with the hideous
accusations publicly and distinctly made against Victor Emanuel by one
of Garibaldi's sons, not to speak of other accusers, and privately
whispered by slanderous gossip all over Europe. One peculiarity about
Victor Emanuel worthy of notice is that he has no luxury in his tastes.
He is, I believe, abstemious in eating and drinking, caring only for the
homeliest fare. He has sat many times at the head of a grand state
banquet, where the rarest viands, the most superb wines were abundant,
and never removed the napkin from his plate, never tasted a morsel or
emptied a glass. He had had his plain fare at an earlier hour, and cared
nothing for the triumphs of cookery or the choicest products of the
vine. He has thus sat, in good-humored silence, his hand leaning on the
hilt of his sword, through a long, long banquet of seemingly endless
courses, which to him was a pageant, a ceremonial duty, and nothing
more. He delights in chamois-hunting--in hunting of almost any kind--in
horses, in dogs, and in women of a certain coarse and gross description.
There is nothing of the Richelieu or Lauzun, or even the Francis the
First, about the dull, I had almost said harmless, immoralities of the
King of Italy. Men in private and public station have done far greater
harm, caused far more misery than ever he did, and yet escaped almost
unwhipt of justice. The man has (or had, for people say he is reformed
now) the coarse, easily-gratified tastes of a sailor turned ashore after
a long cruise--and such tastes are not kingly; and that is about all
that one feels fairly warranted in saying either to condemn or to
palliate the vices of Victor Emanuel. He absolutely wants all element of
greatness. He is not even a great soldier. He has boisterous animal
courage, and finds the same excitement in leading a charge as in
hunting the chamois. But he has nothing even of the very moderate degree
of military capacity possessed by a dashing _sabreur_ like Murat. It
seems beyond doubt that it was the infatuation he displayed in
attempting the personal direction of affairs which led to the breakdown
at Custozza. The man is, in fact, like one of the rough jagers described
in Schiller's "Wallenstein's Camp"--just this, and nothing more. When
Garibaldi was in the zenith of his fortunes and fame in 1860, Victor
Emanuel declared privately to a friend that the height of his ambition
would be to follow the gallant guerilla leader as a mere soldier in the
field. Certainly, when the two men entered Naples together, every one
must have felt that their places ought to have been reversed. How like a
king, an ideal king--a king of poetry and painting and romance--looked
Garibaldi in the superb serenity of his untaught grace and sweetness and
majesty. How rude, uncouth, clownish, even vulgar, looked the big,
brawny, ungainly trooper whom people had to salute as King. When
Garibaldi went to visit the hospitals where the wounded of the short
struggle were lying, how womanlike he was in his sympathetic tenderness;
how light and noiseless was his step; how gentle his every gesture; what
a sweet word of genial compassion or encouragement he had for every
sufferer. The burly King strode and clattered along like a dragoon
swaggering through the crowd at a country fair. Not that Victor Emanuel
wanted good nature, but that his rude _physique_ had so little in it of
the sympathetic or the tender.
Was there ever known such a whimsical, harmless, odd saturnalia as
Naples presented during those extraordinary days? I am thinking now
chiefly of the men who, mostly uncalled-for, "rallied round" the
Revolution, and came from all manner of holes and corners to offer their
services to Garibaldi, and to exhibit themselves in the capacity of
freedom's friends, soldiers, and scholars. Hardly a hero, or crackbrain,
or rantipole in Europe, one would think, but must have been then on
exhibition somewhere in Naples. Father Gavazzi harangued from one
position; Alexandre Dumas, accompanied by his faithful "Admiral Emile,"
directed affairs from another. Edwin James, then a British criminal
lawyer and popular member of Parliament, was to be seen tearing round in
a sort of semi-military costume, with pistols stuck in his belt. The
worn, thoughtful, melancholy face of Mazzini was, for a short time at
least, to be seen in juxtaposition with the cockney visage of an
ambitious and restless common councilman from the city of London, who
has lived all his life since on the glorious memories and honors of that
good time. The House of Lords, the House of Commons, and the Guildhall
of London were lavishly represented there. Men like Tuerr, the dashing
Hungarian and Mieroslawski, the "Red" leader of Polish revolution--men
to whom battle and danger were as the breath of their nostrils--were
buttonholed and advised by heavy British vestrymen and pert Parisian
journalists. Hardly any man or woman entered Naples from a foreign
country at that astonishing time who did not believe that he or she had
some special counsel to give, which Victor Emanuel or Garibaldi or some
one of their immediate staff was bound to listen to and accept. Woman's
Rights were pretty well represented in that pellmell. There was a
Countess something or other--French, they said--who wore short
petticoats and trousers, had silver-mounted pistols in her belt and
silver spurs on her heels, and was generally believed to have done
wonders in "the field"--what field no one would stop to ask. There was
Jessie Mario White, modest, pleasant, fair-haired woman, wife of a
gallant gentleman and soldier--Jessie White, who made no exhibition of
herself, but did then and since faithful and valuable work for Italian
wounded, such as Italy ought not soon to forget. There was Mrs.
Chambers--Mrs. Colonel Chambers--the Mrs. "Putney Giles" of Disraeli's
"Lothair"--very prominent everywhere, sounding the special eulogies of
Garibaldi with tireless tongue, and utterly overshadowing her quiet
husband, who (the husband I mean) afterwards stood by Garibaldi's side
at Aspromonte. Exeter Hall had sent out powerful delegations, in the
firm faith apparently that Garibaldi would at their request order Naples
forthwith to break up its shrines and images of saints and become
Protestant; and that Naples would at once obey. Never was such a time of
dreams and madness and fussiness, of splendid aspirations and silly
self-seeking vanity, of chivalry and daring, and true wisdom and
nonsense. It was a time naturally of many disappointments; and one
disappointment to almost everybody was His Majesty King Victor Emanuel.
His Majesty seemed at least not much to care about the whole affair from
the beginning. He went through it as if he didn't quite understand what
it was all about, and didn't think it worth the trouble of trying.
People who saw him at that splendid moment when, the forces of Garibaldi
joining with the regular Sardinian troops after all had been won,
Garibaldi and the King met for the first time in that crisis, and the
soldier hailed the sovereign as "King of Italy!"--people who saw and
studied that picturesque historic meeting have told me that there was no
more emotion of any kind on Victor Emanuel's face than if he were
receiving a formal address from the mayor of a country town. "I thank
you," were his only words of reply; and I am assured that it was not "I
thank _you_," with emphasis on the last word to indicate that the King
acknowledged how much he owed to his great soldier; but simply "I thank
you," as he might have thanked a groom who opened a stable door for him.
Perhaps the very depth and grandeur of the King's emotions rendered him
incapable of finding any expression for them. Let us hope so. But I have
had the positive assurances of some who saw the scene, that if any such
emotions were felt the royal countenance concealed them as completely as
though they never had been.
In truth, I presume that the whole thing really was a terrible bore to
the royal Rawdon Crawley, who found himself compelled by cursed spite to
play the part of a patriot king. The Pope, the ultramontane bishops, and
the ultramontane press have always been ringing fierce changes on the
inordinate and wicked ambition of Victor Emanuel. I am convinced the
poor man has no more ambition than his horse. If he could have chalked
out his own career for himself, he would probably have asked nothing
better than to be allowed to devote his life to chamois-hunting, with a
hunter's homely fare, and the companionship of a few friends (some fat
ladies among the number) with whom he could talk and make jokes in the
_patois_ of Piedmont. This, and perhaps a battle-field and a dashing
charge every now and then, would probably have realized his dreams of
the _summum bonum_. But some implacable destiny, embodied in the form of
a Cavour or a Garibaldi, was always driving on the stout King and
bidding him get up and attempt great things--be a patriot and a hero.
Fancy Rawdon Crawley impelled, or rather compelled by the inexorable
command of Becky his wife, to go forth in quest of the Holy Grail, and
one may perhaps be able to guess what Victor Emanuel's perplexity and
reluctance were when he was bidden to set out for the accomplishment of
the regeneration of Italy. "Honor to those to whom honor is due; honor
to old Mother Baubo," says some one in "Faust." Honor on that principle,
then, to King Victor Emanuel. He did get up and go forth and undertake
to bear his part in the adventure. And here seriously let me speak of
the one high merit of Victor Emanuel's career. He is not a hero; he is
not a statesman or even a politician; he is not a patriot in any grand,
exalted sense. He would like to be idle, and perhaps to be despotic. But
he has proved that he understands the true responsibilities and duties
of a constitutional King better than many sovereigns of higher intellect
and better character. He always did go, or at least endeavor to go,
where the promptings of his ministers, the commands of his one imperious
minister, or the voice of the country directed. There must be a great
struggle in the mind of Victor Emanuel between his duty as a king and
his duty as a Roman Catholic, when he enters into antagonism with the
Pope. Beyond doubt Victor Emanuel is a superstitious Catholic. Of late
years his constitution has once or twice threatened to give way, and he
is probably all the more anxious to be reconciled with the Church.
Perhaps he would be glad enough to lay down the load of royalty
altogether and become again an accepted and devoted Catholic, and hunt
his chamois with a quieted conscience. But still, impelled by what must
be some sort of patriotism and sense of duty, he accepts his uncongenial
part of constitutional King, and strives to do all that the voice of his
people demands. It is probable that at no time was the King personally
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.