COUNT CAVOUR’S DEATH.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume I, Issue 11, 12 September 1861, Page 3

COUNT CAVOUR’S DEATH.

(From the correspondent of the Times.) Turin, June 6. Consummatum est. Count Cavour died this morning at seven o’clock. It was understood yesterday that the night would be critical, ane the issue of the crisis was scarcely doubtful, as the sufferer had not rallied in the morning, as had been the case with him in the previous days. All power of reaction had left him, and the new attack of fever was sure to find him powerless. The Romans, it is said, crowned on the Capitol the physician who rid them of Pope Adrian YI. The Italians of our days would honestly hang Count Cavour’s doctors if the execution would afford any relief to their feelings. There never was a clearer case of a man murdered by his medical attendants. Within a very short period of five days they attempted to cure the Count of four or more different complaints—congestion of the brain, typhus fever, intermittent pernicious fever, brain fever, dropsy, and lastly gout ; and for all these diseases they could think of nothing but their own sovereign remedy—the lancet. I think these excellent practitioners are worthy to send down their names to posterity. They were—Dr. Rossi, Dr. Mattoni, and, towards the end, the King’s physician. Riberi, the same in whose hands the mother, wife, and brother of Victor Emmanuel expired, one by one, in the early months of the fatal year 1855. Dr. Tommasi, who was summoned from Pavia by Cavour’s friends, was not admitted to consultation.

The excitement of the Turin population, when they became aware of the Prime Minister’s danger, rose to almost a frantic pitch. The whole day yesterday, and more especially towards evening, till late in the night, the gateway and courtyard of the Cavour Palace, the street, and all the adjoining avenues were strongly beset with eager faces—eager and silent, hardly imparting their fears to each other in an under-whisper. Had death been a visible, tangible enemy, you would have said the sullen, dogged expression of those countenances conveyed a firm, desperate resolution to grapple with him. Notwithstanding frequent fits of delirium, Count Cavour seemed to have a distinct presentiment of his fate. Seeing himself alone with his domestic attendants yesterday, he asked with great serenity “whether his doctors had forsaken him ? On being answered, with surprise and concern, that they could never have thought of leaving him for a moment, he replied with a smile, “ Domat - Una ali ahkandoncro io" —“It is I who shall quit them tomorrow morning.” The King paid repeated visits to the builder of the exalted fortunes of his dynasty. The Home Minister, Minghetti, applied for a final interview with the leader of Italian politics, but was kept back by the Count’s physicians. Farini was with him to the last moment.

The dying man showed great strength and composure throughout his agony. There was apparently no intense suffering; at least no utterance of it. He talked with great volubility, and even with his wonted humour, both in moments of mental alienation and in lucid intervals. Not one word escaped him throughout that betrayed the least feeling of resentment or animosity against, any man living or dead. If this busy, scheming mind had no leisure for very expansive friendship or tender affection, it was, however, too loftily raised above the sphere of human passion to harbour any recollection of injury or insult. Generosity was an instinct with him, and cost him no effort. For the rest, his aims were great, and he gave himself no excessive concern for the sacrifices with which they might be attained. He valued faithful and able servants, he knew how to choose and how to turn them to good purpose. But he thought, perhaps, their services were their best reward. He had many who loved him. I known no one who could boast of having enjoyed Cavour’s friendship. He stood alone in his greatness. He talked a good deal about politics, and to the last minute he expressed a firm faith in the destinies of his country. He advised patience and perseverence. He said, “We shall get on to the end” (andremo avanti sino alia fine.) He spoke of Cialdini, Menabrea, Cugia,—of armies of the Po and Mincio. He turned the conversation on almost trivial subjects—the crop and silk worms. Heaven bless his glorious memory ! For him politics was no more than agriculture, trade, or industry. It was a sphere of activity he looked for—work for his restless spirit, for his colossal faculties, for his undaunted energies. In early youth he was an ardent student; in his prime of manhood a deep speculator ; in mature age an earnest, eagerstatesman. By turns he stored his mind, he euriched his family, he made his country. Foresight and steadiness chained fortune to his chariot; he met with no failure. He loved politics for exertions sake. Power had become a necessity for him; he pined and fretted at Leri, in 1839, during those few months of comparative inaction: he would have died of weariness if, upon the Homan and Venetian question being solved, prudence had suggested a retirement under 'the shade of his laurels.

No man in the world, and the greatest least of all, know precisely the Juncture at which it is good for them to die. What loss the death of this great man has inflicted upon Italy coming events will soon tell us. Rut for Cavour himself it is difficult to say whether he could depart this life at a moment more auspicious to his fame. Really great statesmen, born to weather great national crises, have never been long-lived, and a man’s death may be as fruitful of good to his generation as his life. I see a proud, noble spirit rising around me among these brave Italian patriots, stunned as they are by the suddenness of their dire calamity ; a manly resolution not to be borne down even by this irreparable stroke of adversity. Cavour’s imperious, stubborn master-mind forced them to keep together. Cavour’s death warns them to still closer unity of action and purpose. I hear around me, wherever I turn, earnest protestations of abiding by and supporting the government, into whatever hands the King may choose to put it. “ Cavour did the work of ten, of a hundred, of a thousand men,” they say; we must get tens, hundreds, thousands, so to pull together as to do the work of that one man.”

I must say that I augur well for the future of Italy. Yesterday the day was cold and gloomy, with heavy wet, the fit day to body forth a great public disaster. This morning, when all was over, the sky was not only spotless, but of such deep, vivid hue as only this sub-Alpine region can boast, when wind and rain have driven the last speck of vapour from the storm-breeding mountains. What sorrow can live in human breasts in sight of the calm purity of yon glorious Alpine chain, all mantled over with a fresh fall of snow 7 ? Man seems to identify himself with the eternity of nature in presence of this wonderful alternation of atmospheric phenomena. Only last night a great spirit was passing from among us, and before the breath had departed his body the gloom that hung over the house of death yields to the ineffable smile of all created things. It forces a smile in return from the downcast and hopeless—“ Heaviness endureth for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”