Builders of united Italy . wdiscoveries of science and the useful arts, they de-voted themselves exclusively to the trivial enter-tainments of the Eighteenth Century. Napoleonspread above them like a storm cloud; theywrapped themselves as well as they could in theirancestral cloaks and waited, confident that thegale could not last long. The majority of themcould not believe that the French Revolution wasmore than an accident, but there were a few, andthose almost entirely men and women who had livedabroad, who saw further. One of these latter wasCavours grandmother, the Marquise Philippine diC
Builders of united Italy . wdiscoveries of science and the useful arts, they de-voted themselves exclusively to the trivial enter-tainments of the Eighteenth Century. Napoleonspread above them like a storm cloud; theywrapped themselves as well as they could in theirancestral cloaks and waited, confident that thegale could not last long. The majority of themcould not believe that the French Revolution wasmore than an accident, but there were a few, andthose almost entirely men and women who had livedabroad, who saw further. One of these latter wasCavours grandmother, the Marquise Philippine diCavour, from whom he seems to have inherited hisbreadth of view. The family of Benso belonged to the old no-bility of Piedmont, and in time came into pos-session of the fief of Santena and the fastness ofCavour in the province of Pignerolo. A memberof the family who became distinguished for mili-tary services was made Marquis of Cavour byCharles Emmanuel III., and the eldest son ofMarquis Benso di Cavour married Philippine,. C A V O U R THE STATESMAN 167 daughter of the Marquis de Sales, a girl broughtup in a chateau on the Lake of Annecy. The Mar-quise Philippine immediately became the controll-ing factor in the Cavour household; she strove tolighten the heavy somberness of her husbandsfamily in Turin, and at the trying time of theFrench occupation sold much of the family plateand furnishings, and finally certain priceless re-ligious relics, in order to provide for her son, aboy of sixteen, when he was ordered to join Gen-eral Berthiers corps of the French army. Latershe was commanded to become one of the householdof the Princess Camillo Borghese, sister of Napo-leon, and wife of his governor of Piedmont, who,better known as Pauline Bonaparte, figures as oneof the most beautiful as well as one of the liveliestwomen of that age. The Marquise Philippineacquitted herself so well and so graciously that thePrincess became one of her staunchest friends, andwith the Prince acted as sp
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