guided the destinies of a nation. In ten years he made the State of the
north-west an oasis of freedom and good government which attracted the best
intellects of Italy to its service, and henceforth Piedmont became the
centre of Italian aspirations. A new propaganda movement was set on
foot, called the National Society, which rejected both federalism and
republicanism and declared in favour of a united Italy under the crown of
Victor Emmanuel of Savoy; and when the chance of French support came in
1858, Cavour felt it was time to act. This time the end crowned the work.
Austria was deprived of everything but Venice; Tuscany and Romagna declared
for incorporation by plebiscite; Garibaldi conquered Sicily and the south;
and by the end of 1860 the King of Sardinia was king of practically the
whole of Italy. All that still remained to be won was Venice, which Austria
ceded in 1866; Rome, which the French had occupied in the name of the Pope,
and were forced to evacuate in 1870; and the Italia Irredenta of to-day,
viz. the Trentino, Trieste, and Istria, which may be recovered as a result
of the present war. It is worthy of note also that the trans-Alpine
provinces, Savoy and Nice, which had been part of the dominions of the
Sardinian kingdom, were ceded to France in 1858-1859 as a return for her
aid, thus rounding off the western frontier of the new kingdom of Italy so
as to correspond fairly closely with the boundary of nationality.

The foundation of modern Italy shows us the "national idea" at its best;
it was accomplished by noble means and by noble minds; and the latter, in
their perpetual struggle against the forces of reaction, were never allowed
to forget the claims of individual as well as of national freedom. Three
tests of true nationhood, it will be remembered, were suggested at
the beginning of this chapter: a state-frontier co-extensive with the
nationality-frontier, a unitary state-system, and a form of government
recognised by the inhabitants as an expression of their general will.
Italy fulfils all these conditions; for, though the first has not yet been