instinctively that if he got the reins there would be only one driver.
He was known to be indifferent to criticism, and while he listened
patiently to advice, he rarely took it. He had mortally offended the
conservatives by the liberalism of his means, and the liberals by the
conservatism of his ends. Count Balbo, on assuming the office of the
first Prime Minister under the Statute, not only retired from the
directing council of the _Risorgimento_, but went out of his way to
disavow the policy supported in it by Cavour. "The little rascal," he
was heard to say, "will end by ruining the splendid edifice raised
by the wisdom and moderation of so many estimable men!" The
splendid edifice was on the verge of being nearly ruined, but by
timidity--which has lost a score of thrones,--not by audacity. The new
Cabinet entered upon their duties on March 16. Two days later
occurred an event utterly unforeseen--the rising of Milan against the
Austrians. It took them unprepared. They had talked so much about war
that perhaps they thought it would happen in the next century. When
the "now or never" sounded, which does sound sooner or later in all
human affairs, they hesitated or suffered the king to hesitate, which
came to the same thing. That Charles Albert stood for one instant in
doubt when the hour was come desired by him all his life, as he had
often stated, and there is no reason to think untruly, is possibly the
most serious stain on his memory. There are moments when to reflect
is criminal: a man has no right to reflect when his mother is in a
burning house. The reflections which held Charles Albert back were
two. He was afraid that the Milan revolution would breed a republic,
and he was afraid of England and of Russia. England, which during the
previous autumn had sent Lord Minto to urge upon the Italian princes
a line of policy rightly described by Prince Metternich as inevitably
leading to an attack on Austria, now applied the whole force of her
diplomacy to stop the ball she had herself set running. The spectacle