Meanwhile the edge of the precipice was reached. The king was marching on, and still the dictator held the post which he owed to his sword and the popular will. He openly begged the king to dismiss his minister (in his idea kings could change their ministers as easily as dictators). The public challenge could not be ignored. There was no time to lose, and Cavour lost none; his answer was an appeal to parliament. "A man," he said, "whom the country holds justly dear has stated that he has no confidence in us. It behoves parliament to declare whether we shall retire or continue our work." He invited the deputies to pass a Bill authorising the king's Government to accept the immediate annexation of such provinces of Central and Southern Italy as manifested by universal suffrage their desire to become an integral part of the constitutional monarchy of Victor Emmanuel. This was voted on October 11. The majority of Cavour's party did not believe that Garibaldi would give in to the national mandate; he knew him better. On the 13th the dictator called together his advisers of all shades of opinion. There was a heated discussion: a solution seemed farther off than ever. Then, when they had all spoken, the chief rose serenely and said that, if annexation were the will of the people, he would have annexation; _si faccia l'Italia!_ He decreed the plebiscite, but, having made up his mind, he did not wait for its verdict. He issued one more ukase: "that the Two Sicilies form an integral part of Italy, one and indivisible under the constitutional king, Victor Emmanuel, and his successors." By a stroke of the pen he handed over his conquests as a free gift. It was not constitutional, still less democratic; puritan republicans averted their eyes, so did rigid monarchists, but Cavour was perfectly content. He had forced Garibaldi's hand without straining the royal prerogative or the minister's authority. He had gained his end, and he had not betrayed freedom. It could be argued now with more force than in 1860 that Garibaldi and Ricasoli were right in contending that the best government for the southern populations, only just released from a demoralising yoke, would have been a wise, temporary despotism. But despotisms have the habit of being neither wise nor temporary, and, apart from this, the establishment of any partial or regional rule, which placed the south under different institutions from the rest of Italy, would have killed Italian Unity at its birth.