In 1815, on the return of Napoleon from Elba and on the renewal of the war, the Bern Government made a most barefaced attempt to regain possession of the Canton de Vaud; to this they were no doubt secretly encouraged by the Allies, and principally it is said by the British Government, the most dangerous, artful and determined enemy of all liberty; but this project was completely foiled, by the penetration, energy and firmness of the inhabitants of the Canton de Vaud and of its Government in particular. The central Government of the Union was at that time held at Bern and it was agreed upon in the Diet that Switzerland should remain perfectly neutral during the approaching conflict; an army of observation of 80,000 men was voted and levied to enforce this neutrality, but the command of it was given to De Watteville, who had been a colonel in the English service, and was a determined enemy of the French Revolution and of everything connected with or arising out of it. On the approach of the Austrian army, De Watteville, instead of defending the frontier and repelling the invasion, disbanded his army and allowed the Austrians to enter. No doubt he was encouraged, if not positively ordered to do this, by the Government of Bern, many members of which are supposed to have received bribes from the British Government to render the decreed neutrality null and void. At the same moment that this army was disbanded, the directoral Canton (Bern) caused to be intimated to the Canton de Valid that it was the wish and intention of the High Allies to replace Switzerland in the exact state it was in, previous to the French Revolution; and that, in consequence, two Commissioners would be sent from Bern to Lausanne, to take charge of the Bureaux, Archives and insignia of Government, etc., and to act as a provisional Government under the direction of Bern. The Landamman and the grand and petty council at Lausanne, on learning this intelligence, immediately saw thro' the scheme that was planned to deprive them of their independence; they, therefore, passed a decree, threatening to arrest and punish as conspirators the Commissioners, should they dare to set their foot in the Canton, and declaring such of their countrymen who should aid or abet this scheme, or deliver up a single document to the Commissioners, traitors and rebels; they likewise called on the whole Canton to arm in defence of its independence and proclaimed at the same time that should this plan be attempted to be carried into execution, they would join their forces to those of Napoleon and thus endanger the position of the Allies. They took their measures accordingly; the whole Canton Sew to arms; the Bernois and the Allies were alarmed and consultations held; the Count de Bubna, the Austrian General, being consulted, thought the attempt so hazardous and so pregnant with mischief that he had the good sense to recommend to the Allied Powers and to the Canton of Bern to desist from their project and not to make or propose any alteration in the Helvetic Constitution, as guaranteed in 1814. His advice was of great weight and was adopted, and thus the Vaudois by their firmness preserved their independence. They met with great support likewise on this trying occasion from General La Harpe, preceptor to the Emperor of Russia, and a relation to the gentleman of the same name who was so instrumental in the emancipation of Vaud. La Harpe, who enjoyed the confidence of his pupil, exerted himself greatly in procuring his good offices in favour of the Vaudois his countrymen, and this was no small weight in the scale.

Lausanne is an irregularly built city, and not very agreeable to pedestrians, for its continual steep ascents and descents make it extremely fatiguing, and there is a part of the town to which you ascend by a flight of stairs; the houses in Lausanne have been humorously enough compared to musical notes. The country in the environs is beautiful beyond description and has at all times elicited the admiration of travellers. There is an agreeable promenade just outside the town, on the left hand side of the road which leads to Geneva, called Montbenon, which is the fashionable promenade and commands a fine view of the lake. On the left hand side is a Casino and garden used for the tir de l'arc, of which the Vaudois, in common with the other Helvetic people, are extremely fond. On the right hand side of the road is a deep ravine planted in the style of an English garden, with serpentine gravel walks, and on the other side of the ravine stands the upper part of the city, the Cathedral, Hotel de Ville, and the Chateau du Bailli, which is the seat of Government. From the terrace of the Cathedral you enjoy a fine view, but a still finer and far more comprehensive one is from the Signal house, or Belvedere near the forest of Sauvabelin (Silva Bellonae in Pagan times)[57]. In this wood fairs, dances and other public festivals are held, and it is the favourite spot for parties of pleasure to dine al fresco; it is a pity, however, that the edifice called the Belvedere was not conceived in a better taste; it has an uncouth and barbarous appearance.

Lausanne is situated about a quarter of a mile (in a right line) from the lake, and you descend continually in going from the city to the Lake Leman by a good carriage road, until you arrive on the borders of the lake, where stands a neat little town called Ouchy, or as it is sometimes termed le port de Lausanne. There is a good quai and pier. The passage across the lake from Ouchy to the Savoy side requires four hours with oars.

I have made several pleasant acquaintances here, viz., M. Pidon the Landamman, a litterato of the first order; Genl La Harpe, the tutor of the Emperor of Russia; but the most agreeable of all is the Baron de F[alkenskiold], an old gentleman of whose talents, merits and delightful disposition I cannot speak too highly. He has the most liberal and enlightened views and opinions, and is extremely well versed in English, French and German litterature. He is a Dane by birth and was exiled early in life from his own country, on account of an accusation of being implicated in the affair of Struensee; and it is generally supposed that he was one of Queen Matilda's favoured lovers, which supposition is not improbable, as in his youth, to judge from his present dignified and majestic appearance, he must have been an uncommonly handsome man. He has lived ever since at Lausanne, and tho' near seventy-four years of age and tormented with the gout, he never loses his cheerfulness, and passes his time mostly with his books. He gives dinner parties two or three times a week, which are exceedingly pleasant, and one is sure to meet there a small, but well informed society of natives and foreigners. Most German travellers of rank and litterary attainments, who pass thro' Lausanne, bring letters of introduction and recommendation to the Baron and are sure to meet with the utmost hospitality and attention.

The women of the Canton de Vaud are in general very handsome, well shaped and graceful; litterature, music, dancing and drawing are cultivated by them with success; and among the men, tho' one does not meet perhaps with quite as much instruction as at Geneva (I mean that it is not so general), yet no pedantry whatever prevails as in Geneva. At Lausanne they have sincere and solid republican principles and they do not pay that servile court to the English that the Genevese do; nor have they as yet adopted the phrase "Dieu me damne."

PARIS, Dec. 5th.

I returned to Paris by Geneva and crossing the Jura chain of mountains passed thro' Dole, Auxonne and Dijon. At Geneva, where I stopped three days, I met, at a musical party given by M. Picot the banker, the celebrated cantatrice Grassini, who looked as beautiful as ever, and sung in the most fascinating style several airs, particularly "Quelle pupille tenere" in the opera of the Orazj e Curiazi. To my taste her style of singing is far preferable to that of Catalani; there is much more pathos and feeling in the singing of Grassini; it is completely and truly the "cantar che nell'anima si sente." Catalani is very powerful, wonderful, if you will, in execution; but she does not touch my heart as Grassini does.

On my return to Paris from Geneva I found that the conditions of peace had been made public. They are certainly hard, not so much on account of the cession of territory, which is trifling, as on account of the vast sums of money that Prance is obliged to pay, and the still more galling condition of having to pay and feed at her expense an army of occupation of 150,000 men, of the Allied troops, for a term of three or five years, and to cede during that period several important fortresses. The inhabitants of Paris look very gloomy and nobody seems to think that the peace will last half as long. Prussia and Austria strove hard to wrest Alsace and German Lorraine from France; hosts of German publicists had accompanied their armies into France and had written pamphlet upon pamphlet to prove that mountains and not rivers were the proper boundaries of nations and that wherever the German language prevails, the country ought to belong to the Germanic body. Ergo, the Vosges mountains were the natural boundaries of France, and Alsace and German Lorraine should revert to Germany. Russia and England, however, opposed this, and insisted that these two provinces should remain with France; but I have no doubt that the first movements that may occur in France (and they will perhaps be secretly encouraged) will serve as a pretext for the Allies to separate these countries definitively from France.

The Louvre has been stripped of the principal statues and pictures which have been sent back to the places from whence they were taken, to the great mortification of the Parisians, most of whom would have consented to the cession of Alsace and Lorraine and half of France to boot on condition of keeping the statues and pictures. The English Bureaux are preparing to leave Paris and the troops will soon follow; a new French army is organizing and several Swiss battalions are raised. It is generally supposed that by the end of December France, with the exception of the fortresses and districts to be occupied by the Allied Powers, will be freed from the pressure of foreign troops.

The Chamber of Peers is occupied with the trial of Marshall Ney, the Conseil de Guerre, which was ordered to assemble for that purpose having declared itself incompetent. The friends of Ney advised him to claim the protection of the 12th Article of the Capitulation of Paris, and Madame Ney, it is said, applied both to the Duke of Wellington and to the Emperor of Russia; both ungenerously refused; to the former Nature has not given a heart with much sensibility, and the latter bears a petty spite against Ney on account of his title, Prince de la Moskowa. It is pretty generally anticipated that poor Ney will be condemned and executed; for tho' at the representation of Cinna a few nights ago, at the Theatre Francais, the allusions to clemency were loudly caught hold of and applauded by the audience, yet I suspect Louis XVIII is by no means of a relenting nature, and that he is as little inclined to pardon political trespasses as his ancestor Louis IX was disposed to pardon those against religion; for, according to Gibbon, his recommendation to his followers was: "Si quelqu'un parle contre la foi chretienne dans votre presence, donnez lui l'epee ventre-dedans."

December 18th.

I met with an emigrant this day at the Palais Royal who was acquainted with my family in London. It was the Vicomte de B*****ye.[58] He had resided some time in England and also in Switzerland. He is an amiable man, but a most incorrigible Ultra. He displayed at once the ideas that prevail among the Ultras, which must render them eternally at variance with the mass of the French nation. In speaking of the state of France, he said: "Je n'ai jamais cesse et jamais je ne cesserai de regarder comme voleurs tous les acquereurs des biens des emigres. Il faudroit, pour le bonheur de la France, qu'elle fut places dans le meme etat ou elle etait avant la Revolution." He would not listen to my reasons against the possibility of effecting such a plan, even were the plan just and reasonable in itself. I told him that for the emigrants to expect to get back their property was just as absurd as for the descendants of those Saxon families in England, whose ancestors were dispossessed of their estates by William the Conqueror, to think of regaining them, and to call upon the Duke of Northumberland, for instance, as a descendant of a Norman invader, to give up his property as unjustly acquired by his progenitors. We did not hold long converse after this; his ideas and mine diverged too much from each other.

The English are very much out of favour with the emigrants, as well on account of the stripping of the Louvre as on account of not having shot all the liberaux. They had the folly to believe that the Allied troops would merely make war for the emigrants' interests, and after having put to death a considerable quantity of those who should be designated as rebels and Jacobins by them (the emigrants), would replace France in the exact position she was in 1789, and then depart.

Poor Marshall Ney's fate is decided. He was sentenced to death, and the sentence was carried into execution not on the Place de Grenelle as was given out, but in the gardens of Luxemburgh at a very early hour. He met his fate with great firmness and composure. I leave Paris to-morrow for London.

[47] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, VI, 20, 7.

[48] Virgil, Aen., VI, 620 (temnere divos).—ED.

[49] Louis Wirion (1764-1810), an officer of gendarmerie, commander-general of the place de Verdun since 1804, was accused in 1808 of having extorted money from certain English prisoners quartered in Verdun (Estwick, Morshead, Garland, etc.). Wirion shot himself before the end of the long proceedings, which do not seem to have established his guilt, but had reduced him to misery and despair.—ED.

[50] Richard Brinsley Sheridan's (1751-1816) Pizarro, produced at Drury Lane in 1799.—ED.

[51] Three brothers Zadera, all born in Warsaw, served in the Imperial army.—ED.

[52] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso III, 2, i.—ED.

[53] These words mean, or are supposed to mean, in French and in Dutch: "I don't understand" (je n'entends pas).—ED.

[54] Horace, Carm., IV, 2,39.—ED.

[55]John Chetwode Eustace (1762-1815), author of A Tour through Italy (2 vol., London, 1813), the eighth edition of which appeared in 1841.—ED.

[56] Theodoric was a Goth, not a Lombard.—ED.

[57] Of course, Silva Beleni.—ED.

[58] Perhaps Clement Francois Philippe de Laage Bellefaye, mentioned in the Souvenirs of Baron de Frenilly, p. 94. His large estates had been confiscated in the Revolution.—ED.



AFTER WATERLOO



PART II



CHAPTER VI

MARCH-JUNE,1816

Ball at Cambray, attended by the Duke of Wellington—An Adventure between Saint Quentin and Compiegne—Paris revisited—Colonel Wardle and Mrs Wallis—Society in Paris—The Sourds-Muets—The Cemetery of Pere La Chaise—Apathy of the French people—The priests—Marriage of the Duke de Berri.

March, 1816.

This time I varied my route to Paris, by passing thro' St Omer, Douay and Cambray. At Cambray I was present at a ball given by the municipality. The Duke of Wellington was there. He had in his hand an extraordinary sort of hat which had something of a shape of a folding cocked hat, with divers red crosses and figures on it, so that it resembled a conjurer's cap. I understand it is a hat given to his Grace by magnanimous Alexander; St Nicholas perhaps commissioned the Emperor to present it to Wellington, for his Grace is entitled to the eternal gratitude of the different Saints, as well as of the different sovereigns, for having maintained them respectively in their celestial and terrestrial dominions; and it is to be hoped, after his death, that the latter will celebrate for him a brilliant apotheosis, and the former be as complaisant to him and make room for him in the Empyreum as Virgil requests the Scorpion to do for Augustus:

...Ipse tibi jam brachia contrahit ardens Scorpios, et coeli jusia plus parts reliquit.[59]

I met with an adventure in my journey from St Quentin to Compiegne, which, had it happened a hundred years ago in France, would have alarmed me much for my personal safety. It was as follows. I had taken my place at St Quentin to go to Paris; but all the diligences being filled, the bureau expedited a caleche to convey me as far as Compiegne, there to meet the Paris diligence at nine the next morning. It was a very dark cold night, and snowed very hard.

Between eleven and twelve o'clock at night, half way between St Quentin and Compiegne, the axle tree of the carriage broke; we were at least two miles from any village one way and three the other; but a lone house was close to the spot where the accident happened. We had, therefore, the choice of going forward or backward, the postillion and myself helping the carriage on with our hands, or to take refuge at the lone house till dawn of day. I preferred the latter; we knocked several times at the door of the lone house, but the owner refused to admit us, saying that he was sure we were gens de mauvaise vie, and that he would shoot us if we did not go away. The postillion and I then determined on retrograding two miles, the distance of the nearest village, and remaining there till morning. We arrived there with no small difficulty and labour, for it snowed very fast and heavily, and it required a good deal of bodily exertion to push on the carriage. Arrived at the village, we knocked at the door of a small cottage, the owner of which sold some brandy. He received me very civilly, gave me some eggs and bacon for supper, and a very fair bed.

The next morning, after having the axle tree repaired, we proceeded on our journey to Compiegne. I suffered much from the cold during this adventure, and did not sleep well, having fallen into a train of thought which prevented me from so doing; and I could not help bringing to my recollection the adventure of Raymond in the forest near Strassburg, in the romance of The Monk. Nothing worthy of note occurred during the rest of the journey; but this adventure obliged me to remain one day at Compiegne to wait for the next diligence.

PARIS, April 8th, 1816.

I delivered my letters to the Wardle family and am very much pleased with them. I meet a very agreeable society at their house. Col Wardle is quite a republican and very rigid in his principles.[60] His daughter is a young lady of first rate talents and has already distinguished herself by some poetical compositions. I met at their house Mrs Wallis, the sister of Sir R. Wilson.[61] She is an enthusiastic Napoleonist, and wears at times a tricolored scarf and a gold chain with a medal of Napoleon's head attached to it; this head she sometimes, to amuse herself, compels the old emigrants she meets with in society to kiss. The trial of her brother is now going on for aiding and abetting the escape of Lavalette. I sincerely hope he will escape any severity of punishment, but I more fear the effects of Tory vengeance against him in England, in the shape of depriving him of his commission, than I do the sentence of any French court. Yet tho' I wish him well, I cannot help feeling the remains of a little grudge against him for his calumny against Napoleon in accusing him of poisoning the sick of his own army before the walls of St Jean d'Acre. I have always vindicated the character of Napoleon from this most unjust and unfounded aspersion, because having been in Egypt with Abercrombie's army and having had daily intercourse with Belliard's division of the French army, after the capitulation of Cairo, and during our joint march on the left bank of the Nile to Rosetta, I knew that there was not a syllable of truth in the story. Mrs Wallis, however, tells me that her brother has expressed deep regret that he ever gave credence and currency to such a report; and that he acknowledges that he was himself deceived. But he did Napoleon an irreparable injury, and his work on the Egyptian campaign contributed in a very great degree to excite the hatred of the English people against Napoleon, as well as to flatter the passions and prejudices of the Tories.

In the affair however of Lavalette Wilson has nobly retrieved his character and obliterated all recollection of his former error. It is amazing the popularity he and his two gallant associates have acquired in France by this generous and chevaleresque enterprise.

I meet at Col Wardle's a very pleasant French society: conversation, music and singing fill up the evening.

April 15th.

I have been presented to a very agreeable lady, Madame Esther Fournier, who holds a conversazione at her house in the Rue St Honore every Wednesday evening. Here there is either a concert, a ball or private theatricals; while in a separate room play goes forward and crebs, a game of dice similar to hazard, is the fashionable game. Refreshments are handed round and at twelve o'clock the company break up. Mme Fournier is a lady of very distinguished talent and always acts a principal role herself in the dramatic performances given at her private theatricals.

I have become acquainted too with a very pleasant family, M. and Mme Vanderberg, who are the proprietors of a large house and magnificent garden in the Faubourg du Roule. M. Vanderberg is a man of very large fortune.[62] He has three daughters, handsome and highly accomplished, and one son; one of them was married to General R——, but is since divorced; the second is married to a young colonel of Hussars, and the third is still unmarried; but being very young, handsome, accomplished and rich, there will be no lack of suitors whenever she is disposed to accept the connubial chain. I have dined several times with this family. There is an excellent table. The choicest old wines are handed about during dinner, and afterwards we adjourn to another room to take coffee and liqueurs.

If there is no evening party, the company retire, some for the theatre, some for other houses, where they have to pass the evening; if the family remain at home you have the option of retiring or remaining with them, and the evening is filled up with music or petits jeux. I meet with several agreeable and distinguished people at this house, among whom are M. Anglas, Mme Duthon from the Canton de Vaud, a lady of great vivacity and talent, and General Guilleminot and his lady. Col. Paulet, who married M. Vanderberg's second daughter, was on the staff of General Guilleminot at the battle of Waterloo and suffered much from a fever and ague that he caught on the night bivouacs.

I have attended a seance of the Institution of the Sourds-Muets founded by the famous Abbe de l'Epee, and continued with equal success by his successor the Abbe S[icard],[63] who delivered the lecture and exhibited the talent and proficiency of his pupils. The eldest pupil, Massieu, himself deaf and dumb, is an extraordinary genius and he may be said in some measure to direct all the others. Massieu, who has a very interesting and even handsome countenance, and manners extremely prepossessing, conducts the examination of the pupils by means of signs, and writing on a slate or paper; and it is wonderful to observe the progress made by these interesting young persons, who have been so harshly treated by Nature. The definitions they give of substances and qualities are so just and happy; and in their situation, definition is everything, for they cannot learn by rote, as other boys often do, who, in the study of philology, acquire only words and not things or meanings. The deaf and dumb persons, on the contrary, acquire at once by this method of instruction the philosophy of grammar; and then it is far from being the dry study that many people suppose. A German princess who was present exclaimed in a transport of admiration at some of the specimens of definitions and inferences given by the pupils; " Oh! I wish that I were born deaf and dumb, were it only to learn grammar properly!" Sir Sidney Smith was present at this lecture and seemed inclined to make himself a little too conspicuous. For instance, before the examination began, he seated himself close by the Abbe S[icard] and pulling a paper out of his pocket said that he had found it on the ground on his way hither; and that it was part of a leaf from an edition of Cicero which contained a sentence so applicable to the character and talents of his friend the Abbe, that he requested permission to read it aloud and translate it into French for the benefit of those who did not understand Latin. He then read the sentence. The Abbe, not to be out-done in compliments, then rose and made a most flaming speech in eulogium of his friend "the heroic defender of St John d'Acre" and pointed him out to the audience as the first person who had foiled the arms of the "Usurper."

Now this word "Usurper" applied to Napoleon did not at all please the audience, and it shewed a great deal of servility on the part of the Abbe to insult fallen greatness, and in the person too of a man who had rendered such vast services to science. In fact this episode was received coldly, and somewhat impatiently by the audience; and many thought it was a thing got up between the Admiral and the Abbe to flatter each other's vanity; indeed my friend Mrs Wallis, next to whom I was placed, and who does not at all agree with the gallant Admiral in politics, intimated this in a whisper, loud enough to be heard by all the audience and added: "Such a humbug is enough to make one sick." Sir Sidney Smith heard all this and seemed a good deal abashed and disconcerted; he, however, had the good sense to say nothing, and the examination began.

PARIS, May 5th.

I formed a party with some friends to visit the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. We remarked in particular the places where poor Labedoyere and Marshal Ney are buried. There is no tombstone on the former, but some shrubs have been planted, and a black wooden cross fixed to denote the spot where he lies.

To Marshal Ney there is a stone sepulchre with this inscription: "Cy-git le Marechal Ney, Prince de la Moskowa." This cemetery is most beautifully laid out. The multitude of tombs, the variety of inscriptions in prose and verse, some of which are very affecting, the yews, the willows, all render this a delightful spot for contemplation; it commands an extensive view of Paris and the surrounding country. Foreigners of distinction who die in Paris are generally buried here; but it would require a volume to describe to you in detail this interesting cemetery. I think the practice of strewing flowers over the grave is very touching and classic; it reminded me of the description of Marcellus's death in Virgil:

... Manibus date lilia plenis.

We however strewed over the tombs of Labedoyere and Ney not lilies, but violets, for my friend Mrs W[allis], who was of our party, has a great aversion to the lily.

We have just heard of Didier's capture and execution at Grenoble.[64] There are continual reports of insurrections and plots, but it is now well known that the most of them are got up by the Ultras to entrap the unwary. The French people seem sunk in apathy and to wish for peace at any rate; nothing but the most extreme provocation will induce them to take up arms; but then, if they once do so, woe to the Chambre Introuvable, as the present Chamber of Deputies is called; certainly such a set of venal, merciless and ignorant bigots and blockheads never were collected in any assembly. There have occurred several scandalous scenes at Nimes and other places. The Protestants are openly insulted and threatened, and the government is either too weak to prevent it, or, as is supposed, secretly encourages those excesses. In fact in Paris there are two polices; the one, that of the Government, the other, and by far the most troublesome, that of Monsieur[65] and the violent Ultra party, or as they are collectively called the Pavilion Marsan.[66] The priests are at work everywhere trumping up old legends, forging communications from the Holy Ghost, receiving letters dropped from heaven by Jesus Christ, and all this is done with the idea of working on fanatical minds, to induce them to commit acts of outrage and violence on those whom the priests designate as enemies to the faith, and on weak ones, with the idea of frightening them into restoring the lands and property which they have purchased or inherited and which formerly belonged to emigrants or to the Church.

A lady of my acquaintance (to give you an idea of the arts of these holy hypocrites) sent for a priest to confess and to receive absolution, not from any faith in the efficacy of the business, but merely from a desire of conforming to the ceremonies of the national worship. The priest arrived, but began by apologizing to her that he was sorry he could not administer to her the sacrament of absolution; she, surprized, asked the reason; he answered that it was because her uncle had purchased Church lands, which she inherited, and that unless she could resolve to restore them to the church, he could not think of giving her absolution. The lady was at a loss whether to be indignant at his impudence or to laugh outright at his folly. She however assumed a becoming gravity and sang-froid, and told him that he was very much mistaken if he thought he had got hold of a simpleton or a bigot in her; that she had sent for him merely with the idea of conforming to the national worship, and not with the most remote persuasion of the necessity or efficacy of his or any other priest's absolution; she added: "Your conduct has opened my eyes as to the views of all your cloth; I see you are incurable. I shall never send for any of you again; and be assured this anecdote shall not be forgotten. You may retire." The priest, abashed and mortified in finding himself mistaken in his supposed prey, stammered an excuse and retired.

I intend to remain at Paris until after the marriage ceremony of the Duke and Duchess of Berri, and I shall then proceed to Lausanne. It is expected there will be some disturbance on the occasion of this marriage.

I have witnessed an execution by the guillotine on the Place de Greve near the Hotel de Ville. The criminal was guilty of a burglary and murder. It is the only execution (except political ones) that has taken place at Paris for the last six months, whereas in England they are strung up by dozens every fortnight. Independent of there being far less crimes committed in France than in England, the French code punishes but few offences with death.

Why is not the sanguinary English criminal code with death in every line—why is it not reformed, I say? 'Twould be well if our legislators, instead of their puerile and frothy declamations against revolutionary principles and the ambition of Napoleon, would occupy themselves seriously with this subject. But then the lawyers would all oppose the simplification of our Code. They find by experience that a complicated one, obstructed by customs, statutes and acts of Parliament, difficult to be correctly interpreted, and frequently at variance with each other, is a much more profitable thing, a much wider and more lucrative field for the exercise of their profession, than the simplicity of the Code Napoleon; and they would die of rage and despair at the thought of anybody not a lawyer being able to interpret the laws himself. Now as our country gentlemen and members of Parliament are always much inclined to take lawyer's advice, and are besides fully persuaded and convinced that there are no abuses whatever in England and that everything is as it should be, there is no hope of any amelioration in this particular. All reasoning and argument is lost on such political optimists.

The punishment of the guillotine certainly appears to be the most humane mode of terminating the existence of a man that could possibly be invented. The apparatus is preserved in the Hotel de Ville, and is never exposed to view or erected on the place of execution, till about an hour before the execution itself takes place. At the hour appointed the criminal is brought to the scaffold, fastened to the board, placed at right angles with the fatal instrument, the head protruding thro' the groove, which embraces the neck; the executioner pulls a cord, the axe descends and the head of the criminal falls into a basket. The whole ceremony of the execution does not take three minutes when the criminal once arrives at the foot of the guillotine. There is none of that horrible struggling that takes place in the operation of hanging.

June 21st, 1816.

The ceremony of the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Berri passed off quietly enough. Several people, it is true, were arrested for seditious expressions, but no tumult occurred. A great apprehension seemed to prevail lest something should occur, but the gendarmerie and police were so vigilant that all projects, had there been any, would have proved abortive.

[59] Virgil, Georg., I, 35.—ED.

[60] Colonel Gwyllym Lloyd Wardle was the celebrated exposer of the scandal in 1808-9, when the mistress of the Duke of York was found to be trafficking in Commissions. He had retired from active service in 1802, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Financial reasons obliged him, after 1815, to live on the Continent; he died in Florence, 1833.—ED.

[61] Sir Robert Thomas Wilson (1779-1849), author of The History of the British Expedition to Egypt, 1802; a French translation of that work elicited a protest from Napoleon.—ED.

[62] Vanderberg had made a fortune as a contractor to the French army; he is mentioned in Ida Saint Elme's Memoires d'une contemporaine and elsewhere.—ED.

[63] Abbe Sicard (Rooh Ambroise) was director of the Institution of Sourds-Muets from 1790 to 1797 and from 1800 to 1822.—ED.

[64] Paul Didier (1758-1816) took part in a Bonapartist conspiracy at Lyons in 1816, raised an insurrection in the Isere and fled to Piedmont, whence he was surrendered to the French authorities, condemned to death and executed at Grenoble.—ED.

[65] The King's brother, afterwards Charles X.—ED.

[66] The N.E. pavilion of the Tuileries.—ED.



CHAPTER VII

Journey from Paris to Lausanne—Besancon—French refugees in Lausanne—Francois Lamarque—General Espinassy—Bordas—Gautier—Michau— M. de Laharpe—Mlle Michaud—Levade, a Protestant minister—Chambery—Aix— Details about M. de Boigne's career in India—English Toryism and intolerance—Valley of Maurienne—Passage across Mont Cenis and arrival at Suza—Turin.

LAUSANNE, July 8th.

Departing from Paris on the 24th June, 1816, I varied my journey into Switzerland this time, for instead of travelling thro' Lyons or Dole, I took the route of Besangon, Pontarlier, Jougne and Orbe. The country between Dijon and Besancon is a rich and fertile plain. At Besancon the mountainous country begins; it is a strong fortress, and the last considerable town of the French frontier. It lies in a very picturesque situation, being nearly environed by the Doubs, which meanders under its walls, and by very lofty mountains; on the other side of the Doubs stands the citadel, its chief strength. The town of Besangon is exceedingly handsome and well built, and there are several agreeable promenades, two of which I must particularize, viz., the promenade de Chamarre and the garden of the Palace of Granvelle. There are besides several Roman antiquities and the remains of a large amphitheatre. I amused myself very well for a couple of days at Besancon, and met with some agreeable society at the Hotel de France where I lodged. I left Besancon at eight in the morning of the 30th June, and arrived at Pontarlier at six the same evening. Pontarlier is a dreary, melancholy looking place, consisting of a very long street and several offsets of streets, situated in the midst of mountains, eternally covered with snow. Winter reigns here during nine months of the year. At Pontarlier the whole garrison were under arms, when I arrived, to pay the last duties to a most respectable and respected officer, whose death was occasioned by falling into the river, while at the necessary, by the under board giving way. This officer had served in almost all the campaigns of Napoleon and had greatly distinguished himself. What a cruel death for a warrior who had been in fifty battles! That death should have shunned him in the field of battle, to make him fall in a manner at once inglorious and ridiculous! yet such is destiny. Pyrrhus fell by a tile flung from a house by an old woman, and I am acquainted with a gallant captain in the British Navy who lost his leg by amputation, having broken it (oh horror!) by a fall from the top of a stage coach.

I left Pontarlier on the 2d July, and arrived at Lausanne the same evening at five o'clock. On my return to Lausanne I had the pleasure to form an acquaintance with several eminent Frenchmen proscribed and banished from France, on account of having voted the death of Louis XVI, as members of the National Convention, which tried him, and for having voted, after the return of Napoleon from Elba, the Acte additionnel, which excluded the Bourbons for ever from the throne of France, Among them are, 1st, Monsieur Lamarque, who was one of the commissioners sent by the Convention to arrest Dumouriez, but being seized by him, and delivered over to the Austrians, he passed some time in captivity and was at length released, by being exchanged with some others against the Duchess d'Angouleme.[67] He is a very able man and seems to have far more political talent than any of the other Conventionnels who are here. On Napoleon's return from Elba he voted for him, but made strong objections against the formation of a peerage, which he said was perfectly useless in France, and pregnant with mischief to boot, as it would only serve as an appui to despotism. He wrote a pamphlet with some excellent remarks on this, subject. He therein points out the evils of an hereditary Chamber, and of a priviledged aristocracy, who have nothing to expect from the people, but all from the Prince; and in its stead he proposes an additional elective Chamber, something on the plan of the Senate in America, but he decidedly reprobates an hereditary peerage.

The next is General Espinassy, a very good classical scholar and a most upright and amiable man.[68] In his vote he was solely influenced by strong but conscienscious republican principles; he resides here with his wife and two sons; he was considered as one of the best engineer officers in France and he opposed the nomination of Napoleon to the Imperial dignity in 1804.

Another, M. Bordas,[69] opposed Napoleon's assumption of the Consulship on the 18th Brumaire, and was proscribed by him for a short time, but afterwards amnestied and received into favour. He gave his vote for Napoleon on the Champ de Mai in 1815, but accompanied this vote by a bold speech towards Napoleon wherein he found fault with his former despotic practises, and reminded him of the solemnity of his promise to govern in future paternally and nationally, as became the sovereign of a free people. M. Bordas is a very cheerful, lively, companionable man and tho' seventy years of age, he has an uncommon share of vivacity, with something of the ci-devant jeune homme about him, and He is pleased to be considered still as a man a bonnes fortunes.

The next to him is M. Gauthier, who had been a lawyer, and held a considerable post as a magistrate in the time of the Republic and under the Empire.[70] He possesses a good deal of talent, close logical reasoning, and has determined public principle.

The next, M. Michaud, had been also an advocate, and is possessor of considerable property in the department of the Doubs;[71] he is a most rigid unbending republican, something in the style of Verrina in Schiller's Fiesco; he opposed the assumption of the supreme power by Buonaparte on the 18th Brumaire; he voted against the Consulship for life, as well as against the assumption of the Imperial dignity. He is a very good classical scholar. He is a widower and has with him here Mlle Elisa, his only daughter, who follows her father's fortunes. She is a very amiable and accomplished young lady; she has a thorough knowledge of music and of painting in oils, and is classically versed in the Italian language. I soon became acquainted with the whole of these illustrious exiles, and I find great delight and instruction from their conversation; and this is a great relief to me, for the life one leads in a Swiss town is rather monotonous.

LAUSANNE.

I dine very often with my neighbour the Baron de Falkenskioeld, and at his house I became acquainted with M. de Laharpe, who was preceptor to the present Emperor of Russia. He is a native of this Canton, and has returned here to pass the remainder of his life. He is married to a very amiable Russian lady, and having acquired a pretty good fortune in Russia, he lives here very happily and comfortably; but notwithstanding this, he is often tempted to visit Paris, Milan and other great cities, and when there, sighs to return to his native mountains.

As the Ultras of France bear a great hatred towards the inhabitants of the Canton de Vaud, on account of the asylum given and sympathy shown to the proscrits, they have been at the pains of trumping up and printing a pretended petition from the inhabitants of the department of the Doubs, praying that the French Government would endeavor to obtain the removal of these proscrits from the Canton de Vaud, and stating that the said Canton was the foyer of Jacobinical principles, and the place where Napoleon's return from Elba was planned and accelerated, and thro' which the conveyance of intelligence backwards and forwards was conducted. I have no doubt that in this petition more is meant than meets the ear; that the Oligarchs of Bern, as well as the Ultras of France, have a share in it, and that it may be considered not so much as an attempt to compel the Canton to refuse asylum to these exiles, as to excite the Great Powers to enforce the abolition of the independence of Vaud, and to replace it under the dominion and authority of the Canton of Bern.

Everybody here, however, sees thro' the drift of this petition, and many persons whose names are put down as having signed it, have written to their friends at Lausanne, to declare not only that they never signed such a petition, but their entire ignorance even of the agitation of the question till they saw the petition itself in print. The French government, however, has not ventured to act any further upon it, than to make a pompous display of the royalist zeal and bon esprit that pervades the Department of the Doubs.

I see a good deal of Mlle Michaud. I find her conversation extremely agreeable. She had lent to me an Italian work by Verri entitled Le notti Romane al sepolcro di Stipione. She is a very rigid Catholic, having been educated by a priest of very strict ideas. Her devotion however does not render her less cheerful or less amiable. She having expressed a wish to hear the Protestant church service, I offered to accompany her and we went together one Sunday to the Cathedral Church at Lausanne. But it unfortunately happened that on that day a sermon was preached which must have given a great deal of pain to her filial feelings. Mr Levade, the minister, took it into his head to give a political sermon, in which, after a great deal of commonplace abuse of Voltaire, Rousseau and the French Revolution, and very fulsome adulation towards the English government (a subject which was brought in by the head and shoulders), of that island (as he termed it) surrounded by the Ocean, he lavished a great deal of still more fulsome adulation on the Bourbons; and then most wantonly and unnecessarily began a furious declamation against the regicides as he termed them, who had taken refuge in the Canton, and intimated pretty plainly how pleasing it would be to God Almighty that they should be expelled from it. This intolerant discourse, more worthy of a raving Jesuit than of a Protestant minister, was deservedly scouted by the inhabitants of Lausanne; but this did not hinder poor Mlle Michaud from being much affected at the opprobrious tirade directed against a set of men, among whom her father bore a conspicuous part, and who acted from patriotic motives. I must not omit to state that in this discourse M. Levade interwove some hyperbolical compliments towards the young Prince of Sweden, who attended the service that morning. He told him that the eyes of all Europe were fixed upon him, and that Providence had him under his especial care.

Now the following is the character of M. Levade.[72] He is a time-serving, meddling priest, and a most flagrant adulator of the powers that be. He thinks that by declaiming against the French Revolution, and against Voltaire and Rousseau, that he will get into favor with the great people who pass thro' Lausanne, with the French and English Government adherents, and with the great Tory families of England. No considerable personage ever passes through Lausanne, but Mr Levade is the first to make him a visit; and no rich or noble English family arrives with whom he does not ingratiate himself, and he is not sparing of his adulations. This mode of procedure has been a very profitable concern to him, as he has received a vast number of presents, and several valuable legacies, besides securing a number of pupils among the English families, that come or that have been here. He is in short a thorough parasite and time server, in every sense of the word. This adulation of the Bourbon family in his sermon, besides the meanness of it, was highly misplaced, coming from the mouth of a Protestant minister, and somebody exclaimed on leaving the Church: "Que doit-on penser d'un ministre protestant du Canton de Vaud, qui prodigue des louanges a une famille qui a ete l'ennemie acharnee de l'Elise reformee, et qui a persecute les protestants d'une maniere si atroce?" But Mr Levade (tho' to the honor of the clergymen of the Canton de Vaud he is singular among them), yet he has many persons who perfectly resemble him among the members of the Church of England, and who are as eager to support despotism and to crush liberty as any disciple of Loyola or any Janissary of the Grand Signor. The other Protestant ministers of this Canton were highly indignant at this sermon; in fact, it was the first time in this city that the House of God had been profaned by the introduction of political subjects into a religious discourse. This sermon was the common topic of conversation for many days after.

CHAMBERY, 2d August.

I left Lausanne for Geneva on 28 July. I stopped at Nyon to pay a visit to Mme Duthon, with whom I became acquainted at Paris. I dined with her and passed a most agreeable day. Her talents are of the first order, and she is as great an enthusiast for the German language and litterature as myself, besides being well versed in Italian. She had a female relation with her. We took a boat after dinner to navigate the lake, and we visited the Chateau and domains of Joseph Napoleon. The next day I proceeded to Geneva.

I determined on making the journey into Italy this time by Mont-Cenis, and to make it on foot as far as the foot of Mont-Cenis on the Italian side, intending to profit of the opportunity of the first conveyance I should meet with at Suza to proceed to Turin. I accordingly forwarded my portmanteau to Turin to the care of a banker there, and sallied forth from Geneva at six o'clock on the morning of 1st August.

I stopped to dine at Frangy and reached Romilly at seven in the evening. There is nothing worthy of remark at Romilly. The next morning I stopped at Aix to breakfast, and visited the bath establishment. The scenery is picturesque on this route, and the whole road from Aix to Chambery is aligned with remarkably fine large trees. At three in the afternoon I arrived at Chambery, the capital of Savoy. It is a large handsome city, situated in a fruitful valley, with a great many gardens and orchards surrounding it. There is a strong garrison here. Among the many maisons de plaisance in the environs of this city, the most distinguishable is the villa of General De Boigne, who has passed the greatest part of his life in India, in the service of Scindiah, one of the Mahratta chiefs;[73] and it was by De Boigne's assistance that Scindiah, from being a petty chief, with not more than three or four hundred horse, became the founder of a powerful kingdom, comprized chiefly of the provinces of the Ganges and Jumna, torn from the Mogol Empire, whose Sovereign fell into the hands of Scindiah. Scindiah caused the Mogol Emperor's eyes to be put out, and kept him as a state prisoner in Delhi, till the year 1805, when on the Mahrattas engaging in war with the English, Scindiah was defeated by Lake and lost the greater part of his conquests. De Boigne had quitted India in 1796, long before this rupture took place, and at that time Scindiah had a fine regular army of thirty battalions of 1,000 men, each disciplined, armed and equipped in the European manner. He had likewise sixty squadrons of regular cavalry and a formidable train of artillery. At Chambery I met with two French voyageurs de commerce, who with that positiveness, which is often the national characteristic, insisted that De Boigne owed his riches and fortune to his treachery, in having betrayed and sold Tippoo Saib to the English, when he was in Tippoo's service; and I find this is the current report all over Savoy.

Now it is an accusation totally devoid of foundation, as I shall presently show; and I took this opportunity of vindicating the reputation of De Boigne, by simply stating that De Boigne could never have betrayd Tippoo, since he was never in his service; 2dly, that he had, when in the service of Scindiah, fought against Tippoo, when the Mahrattas coalesced with the English against that Prince in 1792; and that had it not been for the assistance given by the Mahrattas to the English (a most impolitic coalition on the part of the Mahrattas, as it turned out afterwards), Tippoo would not have been compelled to conclude so humiliating a treaty of peace; 3dly, that De Boigne had quitted India in 1796, three years before the second war and death of Tippoo in 1799. I stated, too, that I was perfectly well acquainted with these particulars of De Boigne's career, from having served six years in India, and from having been personally acquainted with a gentleman of the name of Lucius Ferdinand Smith, who was the ultimate friend of De Boigne and his lieutenant general in the service of Scindiah; I added that I could not conceive how so unjust and unfounded an aspersion on De Boigne's character could find currency.

I hope that what I said will be effectual towards doing away this injurious report; but very probably it will not, for when the vulgar once imbibe an opinion, it is difficult to eradicate it from their minds, and they are not at all obliged to the person who endeavors to undeceive them, so that General De Boigne's treachery and sale of Tippoo to the English will be handed down to posterity among the Savoyards, as a fact of which it will be as little permitted to doubt as of the treachery of Judas.

CHAMBERY, August 3d.

At the table d'hote this day I nearly lost all patience on hearing an elderly English gentleman extolling the English Ministry to the skies, and abusing the army of the Loire, calling them rebels and traitors. I stood up in defence of these gallant men, and stated that the French Army in the time of the Republic and of the Empire were the most constitutional of all the European armies, since they were taken from and identified with the people; and that it was this brotherly feeling for their fellow citizens that induced them to join the standards of Napoleon, on his return from Elba; that they only followed the voice of the nation; that all France was indignant at the tergiversation and breach of faith on the part of the restored Government, in a variety of instances; and that, had Napoleon and the army been out of the question, the Bourbons would not have failed to be upset, from the indignation their measures had excited among the people. He then said that the Army of the Loire was a most dangerous body of men, and that that was the reason why the Allies insisted on their being disbanded. I replied that this was the highest compliment he could pay them, and the greatest feather in their cap, since it went to prove, that as long as this Army was in existence, neither the crowned despots, nor the Ultras thought themselves safe; and that they could not venture to pursue their anti-national projects, which were all directed towards depriving the French people of all they had gained by the Revolution and bringing them back to the blessings of the ancient regime. He could say nothing in reply, but that he feared I had Jacobin principles, to which I made rejoinder: "If these be Jacobin principles, I glory in them." Some Sardinian officers, who were present, seemed to enjoy my argument, tho' they said nothing; and one took me aside, when we quitted the table, and said he rejoiced to see me take the old man in hand, as he disgusted them every day by his tirades against the liberal party, and by his fulsome adulations of the British Government. The old gentleman held forth likewise in a long speech respecting the finances of England, in praise of the sinking fund, and when it was suggested to him that England from the immense national debt must one day become bankrupt: "Non, Monsieur," (he said),"la Caisse d'Amortissement empechera cela." In fine, the Caisse d'Amortissement was to work miracles. I replied that the principle of the Caisse d'Amortissement was good, provided a constant and consistent economy were practised; but that at present and during the whole time from its establishment, it had been a mockery on the understanding of the Nation, when we reflected on the profligate expenditure of public money, occasioned by the ruinous, unjust and liberticide wars, which were entered into and fomented by the British Government. Indeed, I said it was like the conduct of a man who possessing an income of 200L per annum, should set apart, in a box as a Caisse d'epargne, 20L annually, and at the same time continue a style of living, the annual expence of which would so far exceed his income, as to oblige him to borrow 7 or 800L every year. The old gentleman was all amort at this comparison, which must be obvious to every one. Nothing shows in a more glaring light the blind and superstitious reverence paid to great names; for because this sinking fund was proposed by Pitt, all his adherents extol it to the skies, without analysing it, and give him besides the credit of an invention to which he had no right whatever.

ST JEAN DE MAURIENNE.

I started from Chambery on the morning of the fourth of August, and stopped at Montmelian to breakfast. Here begins the valley of Maurienne, and as this valley, along which the road is cut, is extremely narrow, being hemmed in on each side by the High Alps, Montmelian, which stands on an eminence in the centre of the valley (the road running thro' the town), must be a post of the utmost importance towards the defence of this pass. It was a fortified place of great consideration in the former wars, and if the fortifications were repaired and improved, it might be made almost impregnable, as it would enfilade the road on each side. From the above-mentioned features of the ground, the valley narrowing more and more as you proceed, from the high mountains that align it and from its sinuosities, it follows that at every angle or curve caused by these sinuosities, you appear as if you were shut out from all the rest of the world and could proceed no further. The river Isere runs thro' and parallel with this valley. It rises in the mountains of Savoy and falls into the Rhone in Dauphine. I passed the night at Aiguebelle.

From Aiguebelle to St Jean de Maurienne is twelve leagues, and I found myself so tired with walking, and my legs from being swelled gave me so much pain, that I determined to give up the gloriole of making the whole journey on foot as I intended and to remain here for two days to repose and then profit by the first conveyance that might pass to conduct me to Turin.

From Aiguebelle the valley becomes still more narrow, and there is a continual ascent, tho' it is so gentle as scarcely to be perceptible. Every spot of ground in this valley, which will admit of cultivation, is put to profit by the industry of the inhabitants. Here one sees beans, indian corn, and even wines; for the heat is very great indeed in summer and autumn, owing to the rays of the sun being concentrated, as it were, into a focus, in this narrow valley, and were the bed of the Isere to be deepened, or were it less liable to overflow, from the melting of the snow in spring and summer, much land, which is now a marsh, might be applied to agricultural purposes. The inhabitants of this valley regret very much the separation of Savoy from France, as during the time that Duchy was annexed to the French Empire, each peasant possessing an ass could earn three franks per diem in transporting merchandise across Mont-Cenis. St Jean de Maurienne is a neat little town. I put up at the same inn, and slept in the same bedroom which was occupied by poor Didier who was put to death at Grenoble for having raised the standard of liberty. He was surprized here in bed by the Carabiniere Reali of the Sardinian government, those satellites of despotism; and according to the barbarous principles laid down by the crowned heads, delivered over to the French authorities. I observed a great many cretins in this valley.

SUZA, 10th August.

On the morning of the 8th August two vetturini passed by the inn at St Jean de Maurienne, and I engaged a place in one of them, as far as Turin. We arrived at the village of Modena in the evening. The landscape is much the same as what we have hitherto passed, but the climate is considerably colder, from the land being more elevated. Hitherto I had suffered much inconvenience from the heat. The next morning we reached Lans-le-Bourg, the last town of Savoy lying at the foot of Mount Cenis.

After breakfast we began the ascent of Mont Cenis, and I made the whole way from Lans-le-Bourg to the Hospice of Mont Cenis, that is, the whole ascent, a distance of twenty-five Italian miles, on foot. This chaussee is another wonderful piece of work of Napoleon; a broad carriage road, wide enough for three carriages to go abreast, and cut zig-zag with so gentle a slope as to allow a heavy French diligence to pass, with the utmost ease, across a mountain where it was formerly thought impossible a wheel could ever run. This chaussee is passable at all seasons of the year; the mountain is not so high as that of the Simplon and is less liable to impediments from the snow; the obstacles from nature are less, and you can descend in a sledge from the Hospice by gliding down the side of the cone, and thus descending in nine or ten minutes, whereas the ascent requires four hours' time. From Lans-le-Bourg to the Hospice on Mont-Cenis the road is on the flank of an immense mountain and you have no ravines to cross; the road is cut zig-zag on the flank of the mountain and forms a considerable number of very acute angles, as it is made with so gentle a slope that you scarcely feel the difficulty of the ascent. These repeated zig-zags and acute angles formed by the road, and the very slight slope given to the ascent, make the different branches appear to be almost parallel to each other, and it is a very curious and novel sight when a number of carriages are travelling together on this road to see them with their horses' heads turned different ways, yet all following the same course, just like ships on different tacks beating against the wind to arrive at the same port, a comparison that could not fail immediately to occur to a sailor. There is scarcely ever any detention on this road from the fall of snow, as there are a considerable number of persons employed to deblay it as soon as it falls; but here, as well as on the Simplon, there are maisons de refuge at a short distance from each other. We stopped for two hours at the inn at Mont-Cenis, which is about one hundred yards from the Hospice. It was a remarkable fine day, and I enjoyed my walk very much. The mountain air was keen and bracing and particularly delightful after being shut up for some many days in the close valley. We had some excellent trout for dinner. At Mont-Cenis, near the Hospice, is a large lake which is frozen during eight months of the year. Here reigns eternal winter and the mountains are covered with snows that never melt. From Mont-Cenis to Suza the descent is very grand and striking, and the scenery resembles that of the Simplon; there are more obstacles of nature than on the former part of the road, and here ravines are connected by the means of bridges, and there are subterraneous galleries to pass thro. Several chutes d'eau are here observable; one of them I cannot avoid mentioning, as being very magnificent. It is formed by the Cenischia[74] which divides Savoy from Piedmont and runs into the Dora at Suza. We were highly gratified at the sight of the sublime scenery on all sides, and at the magnificent chaussee, and we all (I mean the passengers in the two coaches and myself) did hommage to the mighty genius who conceived and caused to be executed such a stupendous work. We arrived at Suza at six o'clock p.m.

TURIN, 18th August.

Suza is a tolerably large town and has a neat appearance. It is commanded and defended by the fort of Brunetti, now dismantled, but which is to be repaired according to the treaty of 1815. It will then be a very important post and completely barr the pass of Suza. The road from Suza to Rivoli is thro' a valley widening at every step; at Rivoli you debouche at once from the gorge of the mountain into a boundless plain. The road is then on a magnificent chaussee the whole way to Turin, and every vegetable production announces a change of climate to those coming from Savoy. Here are fields of wheat, indian corn, mulberry and elm trees and vines hung in festoons from tree to tree, which give a most picturesque appearance to the landscape, and, together with the country houses, serve as a relief to the boundless plain. The chaussee is lined with trees on each side the whole way from Rivoli to Turin; I observed among carriages of all sorts small cars, like those used by children, drawn by dogs. These cars contain one person each. They are frequent in this part of the country, and such a conveyance is called a cagnolino. The Convent of St Michael, situated on an immense height to the right of the road between Suza and Rivoli, is a very striking object. The mountain forms a single cone and it appears impossible to reach the summit except on the back of a Hippogriff:

E ben appar che d'animal ch'abbia ale Sia questa stanza nido o tana propria.[75]

The castle seemed the very neat and lair Of animal, supplied with plume and quill.

—Trans. W.S. ROSE.

TURIN, 14 August.

Turin is a large, extremely fine and regular city, with all the streets built at right angles. The shops are very brilliant; the two Places, the Piazza del Castello and the Piazza di San Carlo, are very spacious and striking, and there are arcades on each side of the quadrangle formed by them. The Contrada del Po (for in Turin the streets are called Contrade) leads down to the Po, and is one of the best streets in Turin. Over the Po is a superb bridge built by Napoleon. In the centre of the Piazza del Castello stands the Royal Palace, and on one side of the Piazza the Grand Opera house. The streets in Turin are kept clean by sluices. The favorite promenades are, during the day, under the arcades of the Piazza del Castello and those of the Contrada del Po; and in the evening round the ramparts of the city, or rather on the site where the ramparts stood. The French, on blowing up the ramparts, laid out the space occupied by them in walks aligned by trees. The fortifications of the citadel were likewise destroyed.

In the Cathedral Church here the most remarkable thing is the Chapelle du Saint Suaire (holy winding sheet). It is of a circular form, is inlaid with black marble and admits scarce any light; so that it has more the appearance of a Mausoleum than of a Chapel. It reminded me of the Palace of Tears in the Arabian Nights.

In the environs of Turin, the most remarkable buildings are a villa belonging to the King called La Venezia, and the Superga, a magnificent church built on an eminence, five miles distant from Turin. In the Royal Palace, on the Piazza del Castello, there is some superb furniture, but the exterior is simple enough. The country environing Turin forms a plain with gentle undulations, increasing in elevation towards the Alps, which are forty miles distant, and is so stocked with villas, gardens and orchards as to form a very agreeable landscape. From the steeple of the Superga the view is very fine.

In the University of Turin is a very good Cabinet d'Histoire naturelle, containing a great variety of beasts, birds and fishes stuffed and preserved; there is also a Cabinet of Comparative Anatomy, and various imitations in wax of anatomical dissections. Among the antiquities, of which there is a most valuable collection, are two very remarkable ones: the one a beautiful bronze shield, found in the Po, called the shield of Marius; it represents, in figures in bas-relief, the history of the Jugurthine war.[76] This shield is of the most exquisite workmanship. The other is a table of the most beautiful black marble incrusted and inlaid with figures and hieroglyphics of silver. It is called the Table of Isis, was brought from Egypt and is supposed to be of the most remote antiquity. It is always kept polished. Among the many valuable pieces of sculpture to be met with here is a most lovely Cupid in Parian marble. He is represented sleeping on a lion's skin. It is the most beautiful piece of sculpture I have ever seen next to the Apollo Belvedere and the Venus dei Medici; it appears alive, and as if the least noise would awake it.[77]

Turin used to be in the olden time one of the most brilliant Courts and cities in Europe, and the most abounding in splendid equipages; now very few are to be seen. When Piedmont was torn from the domination of the House of Savoy and annexed to France, Turin, ceasing to be the capital of a Kingdom, necessarily decayed in splendor, nor did its being made the Chef lieu of a Prefecture of the French Empire make amends for what it once was. The Restoration arrived, but has not been able to reanimate it; an air of dullness pervades the whole city. Obscurantism and anti-liberal ideas are the order of the day.

I witnessed a military review at which the King of Sardinia assisted. The troops made a very brilliant appearance and manoeuvred well. His Majesty has a very good seat on horseback and a distinguished military air. He is a man of honor tho' he has rather too high notions of the royal dignity and authority, and is too much of a bigot in religion; but his word can be depended on, a great point in a King; there are so many of them that break theirs and falsify all their promises. He will not hear of a constitution, and endeavors to abolish or discountenance all that has been effected during his absence. The priests are caressed and restored to their privileges, so that the inhabitants of Piedmont are exposed to a double despotism, a military and a sacerdotal one; the last is ten times more ruinous and fatal to liberty and improvement than the former.

I have put up in Turin in the Pension Suisse, where for seven franks per diem I have breakfast, dinner, supper and a princely bed room. The houses are in general lofty, spacious and on a grand scale.

[67] Francois Lamarque, born 1756, a member of the Convention, ambassador in Sweden, prefect of the Tarn and member of the Cour de Cassation (1804). He was exiled in 1816.—ED.

[68] Major Frye (who wrote the name Despinassy) certainly means Antoine-Joseph Marie Espinassy de Fontanelle's (1787-1829), who was a member of the Convention, voted the King's death and served in the Republican army of the Alps. In 1816, he was banished and went to Lausanne, where he died 1829.—ED.

[69] Pardoux Bordas (1748-1842) was a member of the Convention. Though he had not voted the death of Louis XVI, he was banished from France in 1816 and did not return there before 1828.—ED.

[70] Antoine Francis Gauthier des Orcieres (1752-1838) was elected to the Etats Generaux in 1789, and, in 1792, to the Convention, where he voted the death of Louis XVI. Later on, he was member of the Conseil des Anoiena, juge au tribunal de la Seine and conseiller a la cour imperiale de Paris (1815). Banished in 1816, he returned to France in 1828.

[71] Jean Baptists Michaud, a member of the Directoire du departement du Doubs, and a member of the National Convention, voted the death of Louis XVI and against the proposed appeal to the people.—ED.

[72] Jean Daniel Paul Etienne Levade (1750-1834), Protestant minister first in England, then in Amsterdam, finally minister at Lausanne and professor of theology at the Academie of the same town.—ED.

[73] Countess de Boigne, in her interesting Memoirs (of which there is an English translation) abstained from describing her husband's career in India; this lends additional interest to the information collected by Major Frye,—ED.

[74] The manuscript has Sennar, a name quite unknown at Suza.—ED.

[75] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, iv, 13, 5.—ED.

[76] This shield, now at the Armoria Reale, is not antique, but is ascribed to Benvenuto Cellini.—ED.

[77] This statue of Cupid is not antique, and has been recently ascribed to Michelangelo (Knapp, Michelangelo, p. 155.)—ED.



CHAPTER VIII

Journey from Turin to Bologna—Asti—Schiller and Alfieri—Italian cuisine—The vetturini—Marengo—Piacenza—The Trebbia—Parma—The Empress Maria Louisa—Modena—Bologna—The University—The Marescalchi Gallery—Character of the Bolognese.

August —— 1816

'Twas on a fine morning the 16th August that I took my departure from Turin with a vetturino bound to Bologna. I agreed to pay him sixty francs for my place in the coach, supper and bed. When this stipulation for supper and bed is included in the price fixed for your place with the vetturino, you are said to be spesato, and then you have nothing extra to pay for but your breakfast. There were two other travellers in the vettura, both Frenchmen; the one about forty years of age was a Captain of cavalry en retraite, married to a Hungarian lady and settled at Florence, to which place he was returning; the other, a young man of very agreeable manners, settled likewise at Florence, as chief of a manufactory there, returning from Lyons, his native city, whither he had been to see his relations. I never in my life met with two characters so diametrically opposite. The Captain was quite a bourru in his manners, yet he had a sort of dry, sarcastic, satirical humour that was very diverting to those who escaped his lash. Whether he really felt the sentiments he professed, or whether he assumed them for the purpose of chiming in with the times, I cannot say, but he said he rejoiced at the fall of Napoleon. My other companion, however, expressed great regret as his downfall, not so much from a regard for the person of Napoleon, as for the concomitant degradation and conquest of his country, and he spoke of the affairs of France with a great deal of feeling and patriotism.

The Captain seemed to have little or no feeling for anybody but himself; indeed, he laughed at all sentiment and said he did not believe in virtue or disinterestedness. When, among other topics of conversation, the loss the French Army sustained at Waterloo was brought on the tapis, he said, "Eh bien! qu 'importe? dans une seule nuit a Paris on en fabriquera assez pour les remplacer!" A similar sentiment has been attributed to the great Conde.[78] We had a variety of amusing arguments and disputes on the road; the Captain railed at merchants, and said that he did not believe that honor or virtue existed among mercantile people (no compliment, by the bye, to the young fabricant, who bore it, however, with great good humour, contenting himself with now and then giving a few slaps at the military for their rapacity, which mercantile people on the Continent have now and then felt, before the French Revolution, as well as after). The whole road from Turin to Alexandria della Paglia is a fine broad chausee. The first day's journey brought us to Asti. A rich plain on each side of the road, the horizon on our right bounded by the Appennines, on our left by the Alps, both diverging, formed the landscape. Asti is an ancient, well and solidly built city, but rather gloomy in its appearance. It is remarkable for being the birthplace of Vittorio Alfieri, the celebrated tragic poet, who has excelled all other dramatic poets in the general denouement of his pieces, except, perhaps, Voltaire alone. I do not speak of Alfleri so much as a poet as a dramaturgus. I may be mistaken, and it is, perhaps, presumptuous in me to attempt to judge, but it has always appeared to me that Voltaire and Alfieri have managed dramatic effect and the intrigue and catastrophe of their tragedies better than any other authors. Shakespeare, God as he is in genius, is in this particular very deficient. Schiller, too, the greatest modern poetic genius perhaps and the Shakespeare of Germany, has here failed also, and nothing can be more correct than the estimate of Alfieri made by Forsyth[79] when, after speaking of his defects, he says: "Yet where lives the tragic poet equal to Alfieri? Schiller (then living also) may perhaps excel him in those peals of terror which flash thro' his gloomy and tempestuous scene, but he is far inferior in the mechanism of his drama."

To return to my first day's journey from Turin. It was a very long day's work, and we did not arrive at Asti till very late, after having performed the last hour, half in the dark, on a road which is by no means in good repute. The character of the lower class of Piedmontese is not good. They are ferocious, vindictive and great marauders. They make excellent soldiers during war and they not unfrequently, on being disbanded after peace, by way of keeping their hand in practise and of having the image of war before their eyes, ease the traveller of his coin and sometimes of his life. Our conversation partook of these reminiscences, and during the latter part of our journey turned entirely on bandits "force and guile," so that we were quite rejoiced at seeing the smoke and light of the town of Asti and hearing the dogs bark, which reminded me of Ariosto's lines:

Non molto va che dalle vie supreme De' tetti uscir vede il vapor del fuoco Sente cani abbajar, muggire armento, Viene alla villa, e piglia alloggiamenti.[80]

Nor far the warrior had pursued his best, Ere, eddying from a roof, he saw the smoke, Heard noise of dog and kine, a farm espied, And thitherward in quest of lodging hied.

—Trans. W.S. ROSE.

We met on alighting at the door of a large spacious inn, two ladies who had very much the appearance of the two damsels at the inn where Don Quixote alighted and received his order of knighthood; but, in spite of their amorous glances and a decided leer of invitation, I had like Sacripante's steed more need of "riposo e d'esca che di nuova giostra." The usual Italian supper was put before us, and very good it was, viz., Imprimis: A minestra (soup), generally made of beef or veal with vermicelli or macaroni in it and its never failing accompaniment in Italy, grated Parmesan cheese. Then a lesso (bouilli) of beef, veal or mutton, or all three; next an umido (fricassee) of cocks' combs and livers, a favourite Italian dish; then a frittura of chickens' livers, fish or vegetables fried. Then an umido or ragout of veal, fish with sauce; and lastly, an arrosto (roast) of fowls, veal, game, or all three. The arrosto is generally very dry and done to cinders almost. Vegetables are served up With the umidi, but plain boiled, leaving it optional to you to use melted butter or oil with them. A salad is a constant concomitant of the arrosto. A desert or fruit concludes the repast. Wine is drank at discretion. The wine of Lombardy is light and not ill flavored; it is far weaker than any wine I know of, but it has an excellent quality, that of facilitating digestion. A cup of strong coffee is generally made for you in the morning, for which you pay three or four soldi (sous), and in giving five or six soldi to the waiter, all your expenses are paid supposing you are spesato, i.e., that the vetturino pays for your supper and bed; if not, your charges are left to the conscience of the aubergiste, which in Italy is in general of prodigious width. I therefore advise every traveller who goes with a vetturino to be a spesato, otherwise he will have to pay four or five times as much and not be a whit better regaled. The vetturini generally pay from three to three and a half francs for the supper and bed of their passengers. As the vetturini invariably make a halt of an hour and half or two hours at mid-day in some town or village, this halt enables you to take your dejeuner a la fourchette, which you pay for yourself, unless you stipulate for the payment of that also with the vetturino by paying something more, say one a half franc per diem for that. In this part, and indeed in the whole of the north of Italy not a female servant is to be seen at the inns and men make the beds. It is otherwise, I understand, in Tuscany.

The whole appearance of the country from Asti to Alexandria presents an immense plain extremely fertile, but the crops of corn being off the ground, the landscape would not be pleasing to the eye, were it not relieved by the frequency of mulberry trees and the vines hung in festoons from tree to tree. The villages and farmhouses on this road are extremely solid and well built. We arrived at Alexandria about twelve o'clock, and after breakfast I hired a horse to visit the field of battle of Marengo, which is in the neighbourhood of this city, Marengo itself being a village five miles distant from Alexandria. Arrived on the plain, I was conducted to the spot where the first Consul stood at the time that he perceived the approach of Desaix's division. I figured to myself the first Consul on his white charger, halting his army, then in some confusion, riding along the line exposed to a heavy fire from the Austrians, who cannonaded the whole length of the line; aides-de-camp and orderlies falling around him, himself calm and collected, "spying 'vantage," and observing that the Austrian deployment was too extended, and their centre thereby weakened, suddenly profiting of this circumstance to order Desaix's division to advance and lead the charge which decided the victory on that memorable day, which, according to Mascheroni:

splende Nell' abisso de' secoli, qual Sole.

The whole field of battle is an extensive plain, with but few trees, and to use Campbell's lines:

every turf beneath the feet Marks out a soldier's sepulchre.

The Column, erected to commemorate this glorious victory, has been thrown down by order of the Austrian government—a poor piece of puerile spite, but worthy of legitimacy. Alexandria is, or rather was, for the fortifications no longer exist, more remarkable for being an important military post than for the beauty of the city itself. There is, however, a fine and spacious Place, which serves as a parade for the garrison, and being planted with trees by the French when they held it, forms an agreeable promenade. The fortifications were blown up by the Austrians before the place was given over to the Sardinian authorities, a flagrant breach of faith and contract, since by the treaty of 1814 they were bound to give up all the fortified places that were restored or ceded to the King of Sardinia in the same state in which they were found when the French evacuated them, and the Austrians took possession provisorily. The French regarding (and with reason) this fortress as the key of Lombardy always kept the fortifications in good repair and well provided with cannon. But the Austrian government, knowing itself to be unpopular in Italy and trembling for the safety of her dominions, being always fearful that the Piedmontese Government might one day be induced to favour an insurrectionary or national movement in the north of Italy, determined, finding that it could not keep the fortress for itself, which it strove hard to do under divers pretexts, to render it of as little use as they possibly could do to the King of Sardinia; so they blew up the fortifications and carried off the cannon, leaving the King without a single fortified place in the whole of his Italian dominions to defend himself, in case of attack, against an Austrian invasion.

On the morning of the 15th August we passed thro' Tortona, now no longer a fortress of consequence. All this country may be considered as classic ground, immortalized by the campaigns of Napoleon, when commander in chief of the army of the French Republic in Italy, a far greater and more illustrious role than when he assumed the Imperial bauble and condescended to mix with the vulgar herd of Kings.

We arrived at Voghera to breakfast and at Casteggio at night. The country is much the same as that which we have already passed thro', being a plain, with a rich alluvial soil, mulberry trees and a number of solidly built stone farmhouses. The next morning at eleven o'clock we arrived at Piacenza on the Po, and were detained a quarter of an hour at the Douane of Her Majesty the Archduchess, as Maria Louisa, the present Duchess of Parma, is stiled, we being now arrived in her dominions. We drove to the Hotel di San Marco, which is close to the Piazza Grande, and alighted there. On the Piazza stands the Hotel de Ville, and in front of it are two equestrian statues in bronze of the Princes Farnesi; the statues, however, of the riders appear much too small in proportion with the horses, and they resemble two little boys mounted on Lincolnshire carthorses.

I did not visit the churches and palaces in this city from not having time and, besides, I did not feel myself inclined or bound (as some travellers think themselves) to visit every church and every town in Italy. I really believe the ciceroni think that we Ultramontani live in mud hovels in our own country, and that we have never seen a stone edifice, till our arrival in Italy, for every town house which is not a shop is termed a palazzo, and they would conduct you to see all of them if you would be guided by them. I had an opportunity, during the two hours we halted here, of walking over the greater part of the city, after a hasty breakfast. Piacenza is a large handsome city; among the females that I saw in the streets the Spanish costume seems very prevalent, no doubt from being so long governed by a Spanish family.

On leaving Piacenza we passed thro' a rich meadow country and met with an immense quantity of cattle grazing. The road is a fine broad chaussee considerably elevated above the level of the fields and is lined with poplars. Where this land is not in pasture, cornfields and mulberry trees, with vines in festoons, vary the landscape, which is additionally enlivened by frequent maisons de plaisance and excellently built farmhouses. We passed thro' Firenzuola, a long well-built village, or rather bourg, and we brought to the night at Borgo San Donino. At this place I found the first bad inn I have met with in Italy, that is, the house, tho' large, was so out of repair as to be almost a masure; we however met with tolerably good fare for supper. We fell in with a traveller at Borgo San Donino, who related to us an account of an extraordinary robbery that had been committed a few months before near this place, in which the then host was implicated, or rather was the author and planner of the robbery. It happened as follows. A Swiss merchant, one of those men who cannot keep their own counsel, a bavard in short, was travelling from Milan to Bologna with his cabriolet, horse and a large portmanteau. He put up at this inn. At supper he entered into conversation with mine host, and asked if there was any danger of robbers on the road, for that he should be sorry (he said) to fall into their hands, inasmuch as he had with him in his portmanteau 24,000 franks in gold and several valuable articles of jewellery. Mine host assured him that there was not the slightest danger. The merchant went to bed, directing that he should be awakened at daybreak in order to proceed on his journey. Mine host, however, took care to have him called full an hour and half before daybreak, assuring him that light would soon dawn. The merchant set out, but he had hardly journeyed two miles when a shot from behind a hedge by the road side brought his horse to the ground. Four men in masks rushed up, seized him and bound him to a tree; they then rifled his portmanteau, took out his money and jewels and wished him good morning.

Before we arrived at Borgo San Donino we crossed the Trebbia, one of the many tributary streams of the Po, and which is famous for two celebrated battles, one in ancient, the other in modern tunes (and probably many others which I do not recollect); but here it was that Hannibal gained his second victory over the Romans; and here, in 1799, the Russians under Souvoroff defeated the French under Macdonald after an obstinate and sanguinary conflict; but they could not prevent Macdonald from effecting his junction with Massena, to hinder which was Souvoroff's object. In fact, in this country, to what reflections doth every spot of ground we pass, over, give rise! Every field, every river has been the theatre of some battle or other memorable event either in ancient or modern times.

Quis gurges aut quae flumina lugubris Ignara belli?[81]

We started from Borgo San Donino next morning; about ten miles further on the right hand side of the road stands an ancient Gothic fortress called Castel Guelfo. Between this place and Parma there is a very troublesome river to pass called the Taro, which at times is nearly dry and at other times, so deep as to render it hazardous for a carriage to pass, and it is at all times requisite to send on a man to ford and sound it before a carriage passes. This river fills a variety of separate beds, as it meanders very much, and it extends to such a breadth in its debordements, as to render it impossible to construct a bridge long enough to be of any use.

This, however, being the dry season, we passed it without difficulty. Two or three other streams on this route, seguaci del Po, are crossed in the same manner.

The road to Parma, after passing the Taro, lies nearly in a right line and is bordered with poplars. If I am not mistaken, it was somewhere in this neighbourhood that the Carthaginians under Hannibal suffered a great loss in elephants, who died from cold, being incamped during the winter. I am told there is not a colder country in Europe than Lombardy during the winter season, which arises no doubt from its vicinity to the Alps.

Opulence seems to prevail in all the villages in the vicinity of Parma, and an immense quantity of cattle is seen grazing in the meadows on each side of the road. The female peasantry wear the Spanish costume and are remarkably well dressed.

We arrived at Parma at twelve o'clock and stopped there three hours.

PARMA.

After a hasty breakfast, Mr G— and myself sallied forth to see what was possible during the time we stopped in this city, leaving the Captain, who refused to accompany us, to smoke his pipe. This city is very large and there is a very fine Piazza. The streets are broad, the buildings handsome and imposing, and there is a general appearance of opulence. We first proceeded to visit the celebrated amphitheatre, called l'Amfiteatro Farnese in honour of the former sovereigns of the Duchy. It is a vast building and unites the conveniences both of the ancient and modern theatres. It has a roof like a modern theatre, and the seats in the parterre are arranged like the seats in an ancient Greek theatre. Above this are what we should call boxes, and above them again what we usually term a gallery. A vast and deep arena lies between the parterre and the orchestra and fills up the space between the audience and the proscenium. It is admirably adapted both for spectators and hearers; when a tragedy, comedy or opera is acted, a scaffolding is erected and seats placed in the arena. At other times the arena is made use of for equestrian exercises and chariot races in the style of the ancients, combats with wild beasts, etc., or it may be filled with water for the representation of naval fights (naumachia); in this case you have a vast oval lake between the spectators and the stage. It is a great pity that this superb and interesting building is not kept in good repair; the fact is it is seldom or ever made use of except on very particular occasions: it is almost useless in a place like Parma, "so fallen from its high estate," but were such an amphitheatre in Paris, London, or any great city, it might be used for all kinds of spectacles and amusements. A small theatre from the design of Bernino stands close to this amphitheatre, and is built in a light tasteful manner. If fresh painted and lighted up it would make a very brilliant appearance. This may be considered as the Court theatre. At a short distance from the theatres is the Museum of Parma, in which there is a well chosen gallery of pictures. Among the most striking pictures of the old school is without doubt that of St Jerome by Correggio; but I was full as much, dare I be so heretical as to say more pleased, with the productions of the modern school of Parma. A distribution of prizes had lately been made by the Empress Maria Louisa, and there were many paintings, models of sculpture and architectural designs, that did infinite credit to the young artists. I remarked one painting in particular which is worthy of a Fuseli. It represented the battle of the river God Scamander with Achilles. The subjects of most of the paintings I saw here were taken from the mythology or from ancient and modern history; and this is perhaps the reason that they pleased me more than those of the ancient masters. Why in the name of the [Greek: to kalon] did these painters confine themselves so much to Madonnas, Crucifixions, and Martyrdoms, when their own poets, Ariosto and Tasso, present so many subjects infinitely more pleasing? Then, again, in many of these crucifixions and martyrdoms, the gross anachronisms, such as introducing monks and soldiers with match-locks and women in Gothic costume at the crucifixion, totally destroy the seriousness and interest of the subject by annihilating all illusion and exciting risibility.

Parma will ever be renowned in history as the birthplace of Caius Cassius, the Mend and colleague of Brutus.

The Empress Maria Louisa lives here in the Ducal Palace, which is a spacious but ornamental edifice. She lives, 'tis said, without any ostentation. Out of her own states, her presence in Italy would be attended with unpleasant consequences to the powers that be, on account of the attachment borne to Napoleon by all classes of society; and it is on this account that on her last visit to Bologna she received an intimation from the papal authorities to quit the Roman territory in twenty-four hours. We next passed thro' St Hilario and Reggio and brought to the evening at the village of Rubbiera. At St Hilario is the entrance into the Duke of Modena's territory, and here we underwent again &n examination of trunks, as we did both on entering and leaving the territory of Maria Louisa.

Reggio is a large walled city, but I had only time to visit the Cathedral and to remark therein a fine picture of the Virgin and the Chapel called "Capella della Morte." Reggio pretends to the honour of having given birth to the Divine Ariosto:

Quel grande che canto l'armi e gli amorl,

as Guarini describes him, I believe. The face of the country from Parma to Reggio is exactly the same as what we have passed thro' already.

The next day (20 August) we passed thro' Modena, where we stopped to breakfast and refresh horses. It is a large and handsome city, the Ducal Palace is striking and in the Cathedral is presented the famous bucket which gave rise to the poem of Tassoni called La Secchia rapita. An air of opulence and grandeur seems to prevail in Modena.

At Samoggia we entered the Papal territory and again underwent a search of trunks. Within three miles of Bologna a number of villas and several tanneries, which send forth a most intolerable odour, announce the approach to that celebrated and venerable city. On the left hand side, before entering the town, is a superb portico with arcades, about one and a half miles in length, which leads from the city to the church of San Luca. On the right are the Appennines, towering gradually above you. Bologna lies at the foot of these mountains on the eastern side and here the plain ends for those who are bound to Florence, which lies on the western side of the vast ridge which divides Italy. We arrived at Bologna at half-past seven in the evening, and here we intend to repose a day or two; I shall then cross the Appennines for the first time in my life. A reinforcement of mules or oxen is required for every carriage; from the ascent the whole way you can travel, I understand, very little quicker en poste than with a vetturino. We are lodged at Bologna in a very comfortable inn called Locanda d'Inghilterra.