idea of scarcity; or that the wealthy classes of society, who
have never known any other state than one of abundance and
luxury, begin seriously to conceive of famine. But the shops
were emptied; and the storehouses began to be drawn upon; and
no fresh supply, or hope of supply, appeared.

"Winter passed away and spring returned, so early and so
beautiful on that garden-like coast, sheltered as it is from
the north winds by its belts of mountains, and open to the full
rays of the southern sun. Spring returned and clothed the
hill-sides within the lines with its fresh verdure. But that
verdure was no longer the mere delight of the careless eye of
luxury, refreshing the citizens by its liveliness and softness,
when they rode or walked up thither from the city to enjoy the
surpassing beauty of the prospect. The green hill-sides were
now visited for a very different object; ladies of the highest
rank might be seen cutting up every plant which it was possible
to turn to food, and bearing home the common weeds of our
road-sides as a most precious treasure. The French general
pitied the distresses of the people; but the lives and strength
of his garrison seemed to him more important than the lives of
the Genoese, and such provisions as remained were reserved, in
the first place, for the French army. Scarcity became utter
want, and want became famine. In the most gorgeous palaces of
that gorgeous city, no less than in the humblest tenements of
its humblest poor, death was busy; not the momentary death of
battle or massacre, nor the speedy death of pestilence, but the
lingering and most miserable death of famine. Infants died
before their parents' eyes, husbands and wives lay down to
expire together. A man whom I saw at Genoa in 1825, told me,
that his father and two of his brothers had been starved to
death in this fatal siege. So it went on, till in the month of
June, when Napoleon had already descended from the Alps into
the plain of Lombardy, the misery became unendurable, and
Massena surrendered. But before he did so, twenty thousand
innocent persons, old and young, women and children, had died
by the most horrible of deaths which humanity can endure. Other
horrors which occurred besides during this blockade, I pass
over; the agonizin