The only Italy he could conceive was a republic, and Italy was not ripe for a republic, which was, for the rest, a form of government too much bound up with the disruptive traditions of the City-States to be acceptable.[1] But if Italy was not to be a republic, she must be a monarchy, and where could she find a prince to put at the head of her united State?
Clearly, she would accept no one who was not the declared enemy of Austria and the declared friend of constitutional reform.

For a month or so in 1846 it seemed that the Pope himself might be prevailed upon to undertake the role; and the elevation of Pius IX.

to the Chair of St.
Peter was greeted with wild enthusiasm in Italy because he was believed to be a Liberal.

These hopes proved illusory, however, and so the eyes of all patriots turned more and more in the direction of Piedmont.
[Footnote 1: It is noticeable that Greece also played with the idea of a republic at first and eventually selected a monarchical form of government.
As a matter of fact, not a single nation-State, formed in Europe since the Congress of Vienna, has adopted the republican principle.] This principality, which was part of the kingdom of Sardinia, ruled over by the semi-French house of Savoy, shared the northern plain of Italy with Austria, and at first showed neither anti-Austrian nor Liberal proclivities.

Victor Emmanuel came back smiling in 1814, saying that he had been asleep for fifteen years; the old _regime_ was restored as though the Revolution had never been; and a rising of the Carbonari in 1821 was suppressed with the aid of Austrian troops.