The Express.
London, England, 1859-01-11 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, lAN. 11.

THE speech of Vicroa EMANUEL to the Sardinian
Chambers has been looked for with a degree of in-
terest amounting almost to anxiety in every capital
of Europe. At a juncture so critical, friends and
foes were equally solicitous to learn what language
the wary but enterprising Ministers of Piedmont
would put into the mouth of their Sovereign. Attar
the long protracted suspense in which the affairs of
Italy had lain, people in general would have been
content to wait with solicitude, but with calmness,
for the announcements that might be made on the
day appointed for the opening of the Legislative
Session at Turin. Some days previously they had
been startled, however, by the authoritative
utterance of expressions which, if they meant
anything, seemed to be a forestalling by a greater
Power of the policy about to be adopted and avowed
by the lesser State. The abrupt and laconic decla-
ration of the French Ex restos wee interpreted ge-
nerally u a prelude of war. The Funds fell; diplo-
macy became hysterical; negotiators looked in-
dignant at the interruption of their unfinished task ;
and an ambiguous note appeared in the Moniteur
designed to adjourn panic sine die, and requesting
all discreet and loyal believers in Imperialism to set
down the escapade of the Ist January in wha
the Dutch would call " their Forget Book." Bu
the disinterested patriotism of the Bourse is
not so easily reassured ; and the memories

of men are even more prone to disobedience than
their convictions or their consciences. Public curi-
osity could not be coaxed to sleep by the softest
notes of the Guides. The Sardinian Parliament
was summoned to meet upon the 10th instant; and
in its presence it would be impossible to play fast
and looms with the gnat issues of peace and war,
and Italian ildependence of Austrian domination
universally believed to be depending.
To do M. Cvvoua justice he has not attempted
to elude the great responsibility of his position, as
chief adviser of a confiding and courageous RING.
For some years he has deemed it his duty to
dissuade his countrymen and their Sovereign
from anticipating what they and he believed
to be their destiny. He has been content
to incur distrust at home at the hands of the im-
petuous and unreasonable, beelines he would not
rashly risk all of good already achieved and of glory
hereafter to be won, in a desperate struggle with one
of the greatest military powers in existence. Ile
was equally unmoved by the ceaseless complaints of
foreign diplomacy at the studied reserve he perse-
veringly maintained. Neither Count BUOL, M. MAN-
TECFPRL, nor Lord MA LMENHVILY could lure him or
his colleagues into the rash avowal of warlike pur-
poses on the one hand, or into momentary paltering
with the hopes of Italy on the other. He felt that
the best if not the last chance for freedom in the
Peninsula, during the present generation bad been
given him in charge ; and that compared with
the duty of wisely exercising that sacred trust all
other duties were and ought to be subordinate. He
could not be unconscious that the character of the
youthful Monarch whom he served rendered him at
once punt' irly fitted in many respects to play the
part of a Royal liberator, and at the same time ren-
dered him peculiarly liable to be led away to his ruin
by injudivi ins or insincere counsellors. VICTOR
En %Neel is neither an ambitious politician nor a
military genius. Is it too much to say it is fortu-
nate for hinise!t and his country that he is neither ?
The ra• which ten years ago he was suddenly celled
on to undertake is that of a constitutional Sovereign,
with • small hereditary realm in possession
and with greatly extended territories in expectancy.
Had he been either • diplomatist or a strategist, be
would probably have tried long since to realise by
azeicipat ;on what could only come to him safely and
lastingly fly way of reversion ; and he would have
infallibly 'feet in the attempt even that which be
rams to have. Lombardy and Venetia were not
to be won by him at any time during the last tea
years by any use of either arts or arms. Until in
the Neese of time he should have proved himself
thoroughly trustworthy as a constitutional King, it
was not to be expected that millions of people who
had never owed allegiance to the House of Savoy
would cordially tarn to him as a deliverer. It
is infinitely to the honour of the Lombardo-
Venetians, that weld all their suffering@ under Au-
than rule they should have been slow to do so. Hy
his very forbearance, blended with unswerving
firmness, the prieeless conviction has at length
grown op in Italian hearts that Viryon EMANUEL
is thoroughly loyal—a man whom no tempta-
tion will induce to renounce the claim of his
country to indi,Tenous rule, but who cherishes no
dreams of pinioned aggrandisement incompatible
with the will or the interest of that country. In a
word, he has, by a faultless political reign of ten
yeast' dur.ition„ satisfied his neighbours that he is a
safe men sod a fit man to be trusted with extended
power, and that be will never try to seize it, but
wait until they summon him to confer it on him.