On taking office, Cavour doubted for a moment his own future, the doubt common to men who reach a position they have waited for too long. In these times, he wrote, politicians were soon used up; probably it would be so with him. But the work of his department dispelled gloomy thoughts: as Minister of Commerce he negotiated treaties with France, England, and Belgium in which a step was made towards realising his favourite theories on free trade. Before long he was also made Minister of the Marine; it was taken for granted that he could do as much work as two or three other men. Though both these offices were secondary, Cavour became insensibly leader of the house. Questions on whatever subject were answered by him, and he was not careful to consult his chief as to the tenor of his replies. Massimo d'Azeglio said with a rueful smile that he was now like Louis Philippe: he ruled, but did not govern. Cavour stated his own opinions, whether they were popular or unpopular, consonant with those of his party or directly opposed to them. A deputy asked Government to interfere with the mode and substance of the teaching in the seminaries. Cavour immediately answered that he would hold such interference to be a most fatal act of absolutism; the person to control the instruction given in the seminaries was the bishop; let bishops play the part of theologians, not of deputies, and let the Government govern, and not play the theologian. Some one pointed out that this was quite at variance with what had been said by the other ministers; Cavour excused himself towards his colleagues, but repeated that the principle was one of supreme importance. He had spoken "less as a minister than as a politician." And he never learnt to speak otherwise until there was a ministry in which (to borrow a once often quoted witticism) all the ministers were called Cavour.
The energy with which Cavour repudiated the idea of interfering with the seminaries is interesting on other grounds. Possibly he was the only continental statesman who ever saw liberty in an Anglo-Saxon light. This is further shown by the policy he advocated in dealing with the Jesuits. He did not like the Society, which he described as a worse scourge to humanity than communism. You must not judge its real nature, he said, by observing it where its position is contested and precarious. Look at it, rather, where it has a loose rein, where it can apply its rules in a logical and consequent manner, where the whole education of youth is in its hands. The result is _une génération abâtardie_. But the remedy he proposed was not repression. He wished to grant the Jesuits three, four, ten times the liberty they gave to others in the countries under their power. In a free country they could do no harm; they would be always obliged to modify and transform themselves and would never gain a real empire either in the world of politics or intellect The great Pombal, who may be called the Cavour of Portugal, took his conception of a free state from England, like the Italian statesman, but he did not understand that persecution is an unfortunate way of inaugurating liberty. This is what for Cavour was "a principle of supreme importance."