I could see that he was hesitating and that the idea
of reconstituting parties, which had always been one of his most
cherished and important schemes, was very present with him, but I
think that the conviction of the necessity of the restoration of the
confidence of the financial publics of Europe finally prevailed
with him, for he decided to offer the Treasury to Sonnino, to whose
measures he subsequently gave the most thorough and loyal support,
though some of them were the reverse of popular and not of possible
effectuation without his earnest support. It is possible that my
advice turned the balance in his mind, but it is, with one later
exception, the only instance in which I ever ventured to advise him as
to a political line of conduct, though I was generally credited with a
good deal of meddling.
The conduct of the Italian factions and politicians during the two
years of the second ministry of Crispi, the internecine war of
intrigues to which the King lent a negative but effectual assent, and
which ended in the disaster of Adowah, showed me that the Italian
commonwealth is incurably infected with political caries, and that,
though the state may endure, even as a constitutional monarchy, for
years, the restoration of civic vitality to it is only to be hoped for
under the condition of a moral renovation, to which the Roman Catholic
Church is an unsurmountable obstacle, because the Church itself
has become infected with the disease of the state,--the passion of
personal power, carried to the fever point of utter disregard of the
general good.
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