to which Cavour was hated by the conservatives is shown by one small
fact: he was treasurer of an Infant Asylum, but it was thought
necessary privately to ask him to retire for the good of the charity,
his connection with which set all the higher society against it. The
case with the radicals was no better. He belonged to an agricultural
association in which Valerio was a leading spirit; one day he asked
leave to speak, upon which almost all the members present left the
building. On this side, no doubt part of the antipathy arose from
the popular feeling against Cavour's father, who still occupied the
invidious and ill-defined office of Vicario. No particular ferocity
was laid at his door, but he was supposed to serve up all the private
affairs of the good Turinese to the king, and if any one got into
trouble he was thought to be the cause. When the liberals triumphed,
the first thing they did was to oblige him to resign. Then Cavour's
elder brother, though not retrograde on economic subjects, was a
conservative of the old school in politics. In later days Gustavo
always voted against Camillo. In politics the brothers were in
admirable agreement to differ; in fact, after the first trifling jars,
they dwelt to the end in unruffled harmony in the family palace, Via
dell' Arcivescovado. At the time when Gustavo was much better known at
Turin than Camillo the suspicious radical could not persuade himself
that one brother was not as much of an aristocrat as the other.
When Mr. Cobden was cordially received by both Marquis and Count,
a would-be wit exclaimed, "There goes Free-trade in the charge of
Monopoly," which was understood to refer to the false accusation
that the Cavours had stored up a quantity of grain in that year of
scarcity, 1847, in order to sell it dear, the truth being simply that
the improved cultivation introduced at Leri had secured fair crops in
a bad season.