MENABRE'A, LUIGI FEDERIGO, Count; b. at Charnbeiy, in Savoy, 1809; educated! for an engineer; entered the army as lieut., but was early promoted to a professorship of applied mathematics in the military academy of Turin, where he at once distinguished himself by scientific essays contributed to the academies of science of Paris and Turin_ In 1848 Ile promoted the union of Piedmont and Sardinia; was elected a member of the Subalpine parliament, appointed secretary of the minister of war, and the following year secretary of foreign affairs. After participating in vigorous measures to resist the Aus trians, he continued a member of the chamber, assmning at first the defense of the church of Rome, and believing in the possible accord of the papacy with Italian unity. But, through the influence of Cavour, after 1859 he abandoned that hope, and ranged himself with the radical_unionists. After the defeat of the Austrians by the French, and the: annexation of Savoy to France, he left the province to retain his citizenship of Italy, and was made director of military siege operations against Gat1te and the kiug of Naples, in " the Sebastopol of the_Bourbons." It surrendered after 57 days' siege, for which success he was made lient.gen. and count. In 1861 he succeeded Ricasoli as minister of marine, and in 1862 added the duties of minister of public works. He was a party to the con vention between France and Austria in 1864, and of the treaty of Prague in 1866, which finally led to the annexation of Venice to Italy; and it WM 11C W110 presented to "Victor Emmanuel the iron crown of Lombardy. He was called in 1867, on the retirement of
Ratazzi, to form a new cabinet. Garibaldi was marching upon Rome, to sever the last link in the chain of papal -civil power in Italy. France opposed Garibaldi with her troops. Menabrea did the humiliating duty of endeavoring to buy the withdrawal of the French troope, and the substitution of Italian troops, by a promise to disavow the acts of Garibaldi. Occupying this equivocal position of half-sustaining the temporal power of the pope, keeping the peace with France, aud yet advocating the unity of Italy, he fell between all the parties and tendered his resignation. Victor Emmanuel refused to accept it. Menabrea formed a new cabinet and continued with adroitness to pursue the road which Cavour had marked out: viz., to submit to the meddling of France in the defense of the pope till events should ripen for Italian unity. Ile continued at the head of affairs for two years, temporizing with the ,pope and the republicans, and enduring the policy of Napoleon through fear. When the pope in 1869 convoked the bishops to announce the syllabus of infallibility, Menabrea proclahned the reserved rights of the state as without the pale of the pope's powers. Italy outgrew his thnorous policy, and in Nov., 1869, .lie gave way to the ministry of Lanza-Sella. He has published Ripublique et Afaii arehie dans l'etat actuel de la FrcInce, 1871.