d 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 ho