Victor Emanuel II (1820-78), king of Sardinia, who succeeded his father after the unfortunate day at Novara, had pledged him self to the statute with a faith which he al ways kept and which won for him the title Galantuomo) Honest King") ; and he dedicated his life to the triumph of liberty and to Italian independence. Reigning thus, with the help of his ministers at the head of whom were Massimo d'Azeglio and that great statesman Camillo Cavour (1810-61), he laid in Piedmont the foundations of a government absolutely libbral, national and progressive. They offered a generous hospitality to emigrants from all the other Italian states where reac tion raged; since all were equal before the law, they abolished the Ecclesiastical Forum; they put through administrative, financial and economic reforms; they stimulated agricultural and industrial production and extended com merce; they reorganized and improved the army because it was obliged to sustain future trials. The king and the Piedmontese govern ment exerted themselves for the representation of the entire Italian nation•, when the war against Russia broke out in the East, the king of Sardinia allied himself *ith France and England, and the Italian army acquired much glory in the Crimea (1855), thus giving an opportunity and justification to Cavour to speak with authority in the name of Italy in the Congress of Paris with which this war closed. In order to prepare the way for harmony among all the Italians in the coming rehabilita tion, the ((National Society" was founded in Turin in 1857, and Cavour, since the campaign of 1848-49 had demonstrated that Italy could not act by herself, succeeded in establishing harmonious relations with the Emperor Napoleon III, obtaining from him a promise of help in driving the Austrians out of the peninsula. Victor Emanuel II, in opening a new session of the Subalpine Parliament (10 Jan. 1859), declared that he ((was not insensible to the cries of sufferings° which were directed toward him from every part of Italy; and a few days afterward a treaty of alliance be tween France and Piedmont was arranged, which formed a fitting conclusion to a glorious decade and which was to give independence to Italy.
Napoleon III, descending into Piedmont with 110,000 Frenchmen, promised to make Italy free from the Alps to the Adriatic. The Austrians, having crossed the Ticino on 29 April, hoped to be able to defeat the Piedmontese before the arrival of their allies and to occupy Turin, but it was not possible. The French and Sardinians together were victorious at Montebello, Palestro and Magenta; and after that, the conquered enemy having withdrawn toward Mincio, Victor Emanuel II and Na poleon III entered Milan triumphantly on 8 June. These happy events caused the central Italian states to rise against their respective sovereigns — first Tuscany, then Parma and Piacenza, while Modena and Reggio, and finally Ferrara and Romagna, offered allegiance to the of Sardinia and accepted commissioners appointed by him. In the meanwhile the war continued, and at Solferino and at San Mar tino (24 June) the allies were victorious in great battles; but the Emperor Napoleon III unexpectedly called a halt in the redemption of his promise, and on 11 July, for reasons not yet well understood, he concluded the armis tice of Villafranca with the enemy, which armistice Victor Emanuel was regretfully forced to accept. By the terms of this armistice, followed in November by the Pact of Zurich, Lombardy was ceded to France, to be trans ferred to Victor Emanuel, and in central Italy those princes were to return who had been driven out, since the populace demanded their return. But this they no longer desired;
therefore, hardly had the royal commissioners departed, when the people elected provisional governments which at once set to work to thwart any attempts at return on the part of the abdicated sovereigns. Napoleon was at last convinced that it was not possible to detach from Piedmont those regions which so ear nestly wished to be united with her; but he wished a recompense, which was the cession of Savoy and of Nice (24 March 1860), granted in the treaty of alliance in exchange for the freedom of Lombardy-Venetia. Henceforth the kingdom of Sardinia included Piedmont, Lombardy, Parma and Piacenza, Modena, Fer rara, Romagna, Tuscany, Liguria and the island from which it takes its name; and this was the beginning of the present kingdom of Italy.
In the kingdom of the two Sicilies Fer dinand II was succeeded by Francesco II, a son worthy of his father. In the beginning of April 1860 a conspiracy gave rise to• a small rebellion in Palermo, followed by other insur rections in various parts of the island. The time seemed opportune to Garibaldi to attempt the liberation of Sicily and of Naples. On 5 May 1,000 enthusiastic volunteers set out from the Rock of Quarto near Genoa, under his com mand and with the good will of the govern ment and the king of Piedmont: they landed at Marsala, where Garibaldi assumed dictator ship in the name of Victor Emanuel II, king of Italy, conquered the Bourbons at Culatafini, entered Palermo after a brief struggle, and, his numbers constantly increasing, gained a decisive victory at Milazzo; and in a little more than a month the entire island was free. Hence forth, some small risings discovered here and there opened up the way for him; he landed in Calabria, and almost without a blow, was welcomed as a liberator everywhere. He ad vanced toward Naples, into which city, pre ceding his men, he entered almost alone on 7 September, the day after King Francesco II had fled to the fortress at Gaeta. At this point an event occurred which has been called the masterpiece of Cavour. The governments of Europe were much disturbed by the triumphs of the popular hero Garibaldi, which rendered the Italian Revolution so terrible. Cavour thought that if the secular monarchy of Savoy, which up to this time had only assisted this ex pedition of Garibaldi's, should boldly assume the direction of it, it would not only add to its prestige in Italy, but would furnish the Euro pean powers with such guarantees of order as to render their intervention unnecessary. He decided, therefore, to come to the aid of Garibaldi. Having first traversed and captured from the Pope the Marches and Umbria in the victory of Castelfidario (18 September), the Piedmontese army entered Naples, where Gari baldi and his followers had won the battle of Volturno but had not been able to capture the fortresses which still resisted them. Victor Emanuel II and Garibaldi entered together into Naples. A plebiscite of Neapolitans and of Sicilians declared the desire of these regions to be united with the others, as they had been in the former state of Savoy; and Garibaldi, after he had presented the result of this vote to the conquered king, withdrew into his island of Caprera, carrying with him as the rich booty of conquest a sack of straw. In February 1861, the first Parliament of all the regions of Italy was assembled in Turin; on 17 March that law, which declared the kingdom of Italy constitu tional was ratified, and on 27 March Rome, still in the possession of the Pope, was boldly proclaimed the capital of the new state.