<P> Camillo Benso was born in Turin during Napoleonic rule, into a family that had gained a fair amount of land during the French occupation . He was the second of two sons of Michele Giuseppe Francesco Antonio Benso, 4th Marquess of Cavour and Count of Isolabella, Baron of the French Empire (1781--1850) and his wife Adélaïde (Adèle) Suzanne, Marchioness of Sellon (1780--1846), herself of French origin . His godparents were Napoleon's sister Pauline, and her husband, Prince Camille Borghese, after whom Camillo was named . </P> <P> Camillo and his older brother Gustavo were initially educated at home . He was sent to the Turin Military Academy when he was only ten years old . In July 1824 he was named a page to Charles Albert, the king of Piedmont (1831--1849). Cavour frequently ran afoul of the authorities in the academy, as he was too headstrong to deal with the rigid military discipline . He was once forced to live three days on bread and water because he had been caught with books that the academy had banned . He was found to be apt at the mathematical disciplines, and was therefore enlisted in the Engineer Corps in the Piedmontese - Sardinian army in 1827 . While in the army, he studied the English language as well as the works of Jeremy Bentham and Benjamin Constant, developing liberal tendencies which made him suspect to police forces at the time . He resigned his commission in the army in November 1831, both because of boredom with military life and because of his dislike of the reactionary policies of King Charles Albert . He administered the family estate at Grinzane, some forty kilometers outside the capital, serving as mayor there from 1832 to the revolutionary upheaval of 1848 . </P> <P> Cavour then lived time in Switzerland, with his Protestant relatives in Geneva . He grew acquainted with Calvinist teachings, and for a short while he converted from a form of unorthodox Catholicism, only to go back later . A Reformed pastor, Alexandre Vinet, impressed upon Cavour the need for the separation of church and state, a doctrine Cavour followed for the remainder of his life . He then traveled to Paris where he was impressed by parliamentary debates, especially those of François Guizot and Adolphe Thiers, confirming his devotion to a political career . He next went to London, where he was much more disappointed by British politics, and toured the country, visiting Oxford, Liverpool, Birmingham, Chester, Nottingham, and Manchester . A quick tour through the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland (the German part and the Lake Geneva area) eventually landed him back in Turin . </P> <P> Cavour believed that economic progress had to precede political change, and stressed the advantages of railroad construction in the peninsula . He was a strong supporter of transportation by steam engine, sponsoring the building of many railroads and canals . Between 1838 and 1842 Cavour began several initiatives in attempts to solve economic problems in his area . He experimented with different agricultural techniques on his estate, such as growing sugar beets, and was one of the first Italian landowners to use chemical fertilizers . He also founded the Piedmontese Agricultural Society . In his spare time, he again traveled extensively, mostly in France and the United Kingdom . </P>

Who was cavour and what did he do