Mamiani spoke quite as suggestively : —
If there is provocation, it exists on both sides ; it is not in the facts only, but in the moral order. On this side of the Ticino there is liberty ; beyond it slavery. Here everything is done to secure the dignity of our country ; there, to oppress it. That is the real provocation, which cannot be prevented.
In order to identify himself entirely with the event, Cavour took everything into his own hands ; at the opening of hostilities he was President of the Council, Minister of the Interior, of Foreign Affairs, and of War. His resignation after the Peace of Villafranca added vastly to his popularity, and he returned to office afterwards with redoubled power, but at a time of still greater difficulty. It was now his part to finish the work which France had left undone ; to accomplish alone, and in defiance of his ally, what Napoleon had pronounced impossible ; to conclude the revolution without permitting the triumph of the revolutionary party, which had been deemed so formidable on the morrow of Solferino ; to prepare for the treaty of Zürich the fate which had overtaken the treaties of Vienna.
A paper was circulated among the Great Powers, bearing no signature, and appealing to their interest in the independence of Italy from France, in order to justify the annexation of the Duchies. It was the last attempt to save Savoy and Nice, which the principles of annexation by popular suffrage, and of national unity, required as a penalty for the Italian Revolution. By a just retribution, it happened that the conduct of the Ministry in the course of the negotiations in which this sacrifice was made, was as ignominious and dishonourable as that by which they had gained their ambitious ends in Italy. Circumstances rendered their position hopeless ; they themselves made it infamous. On the 10th of January 1860, the new governor of Savoy received the Municipality of Chambery, with the assurance that " in Turin there had never been a question of surrendering Savoy to France." On the 18th the organ of the annexionists, the Avenir de Nice, declared : —
