The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 09

by Unknown

PIEDMONT AND SAVOY

[1027-1700 A.D.]

While the other ducal thrones of Italy were thus for the most part filled only by slothful voluptuaries, that of Savoy seemed reserved for a succession of sovereigns, whose fearless activity and political talents constantly placed their characters in brilliant contrast with the indolence and imbecility of their despicable contemporaries.[c] The history of this house shows in a striking manner how the destinies of a nation may depend on the fortunes of a princely family. During eight centuries the princes of Savoy have, in the words of Charles Emmanuel III, “treated Italy as an artichoke to be eaten leaf by leaf.” Their work is now perfected in the freedom of the state.

The descent of Humbert the Whitehanded, the founder of the family, is uncertain, but he was probably a son of Amadeus, the great-grandson of Boson of Provence. In reward for services rendered to Rudolf III of Arles, Humbert obtained from him in 1027 the counties of Savoy and Maurienne, and from the emperor Conrad the Salic, Chablais, and the lower Valais. On his death in 1048 he was succeeded perhaps by his eldest son, Amadeus I, but eventually by his fourth son, Otho, who, by his marriage with Adelaide of Susa, obtained the counties of Turin and the Val d’Aosta, and so acquired a footing in the valley of the Po. Otho was succeeded in 1060 by his son Amadeus II, who maintained a judicious neutrality between his brother-in-law, the emperor Henry IV, and the pope. In reward for his mediation he obtained from the former, after Canossa, the province of Bugey. The accession of his son Humbert II in 1080 brought fresh increase of territory in the valley of the Tarantaise, and in 1091 this prince succeeded to the dignities of his grandmother, Adelaide. Amadeus III came to the throne in 1103, and in 1111 his states were created counties of the empire by Henry V. On his way home from the crusades in 1149 Amadeus died at Nicosia, and was succeeded by his son Humbert III. The prince took the part of the pope against Barbarossa, who ravaged his territories until Humbert’s death in 1188. The guardians of his son Thomas reconciled their ward and the emperor. He received from Henry VI accessions of territory in Vaud, Bugey, and Valais, with the title of imperial vicar in Piedmont and Lombardy. He was followed in 1233 by Amadeus IV. A campaign against the inhabitants of Valais ended in the annexation of their district, and his support of Frederick II against the pope caused the erection of Chablais and Aosta into a duchy.

[1253-1482 A.D.]

In 1253 his son Boniface succeeded to his states at the age of nine, but after giving proofs of his valour by defeating the troops of Charles of Anjou before Turin, he was taken prisoner and died of grief (1263).

The Salic law now came into operation for the first time, and Peter, the uncle of Boniface, was called to the throne. This prince, on the marriage of his nieces, Eleanor and Sancha of Provence, with Henry III of England and Richard, earl of Cornwall, had visited England, where he had been created earl of Richmond, and built a palace in London, afterwards called Savoy House. In return he recognised the claims of Richard to the imperial throne, and received from him Kyburg, in the diocese of Lausanne. At his death in 1268 he was succeeded by his brother Philip I, who died in 1285, when their nephew Amadeus V came to the throne. This prince, surnamed the Great, united Baugé and Bresse to his states in right of his wife Sibylla, and later on lower Faucigny and part of Geneva. For his second wife he married Mary of Brabant, sister of the emperor Henry VII, from whom he received the seigniory of Aosta. His life was passed in continual and victorious warfare, and one of his last exploits was to force the Turks to raise the siege of Rhodes. He died in 1323. His son Edward succeeded him, and dying in 1329, was followed by his brother Aymon. This prince died in 1343, when his son Amadeus VI ascended the throne. His reign was, like his grandfather’s, a series of petty wars, from which he came out victorious and with extended territory, until he died of the plague (1383). The promising reign of his son Amadeus VII was cut short by a fall from his horse in 1391. Before his death, however, he had received the allegiance of Barcelonnette, Ventimiglia, Villafranca, and Nice, so gaining access to the Mediterranean.

His son Amadeus VIII now came to the throne, under the guardianship of his grandmother Bona (Bonne) de Bourbon. On attaining his majority he first directed his efforts to strengthening his power in the outlying provinces. The states of Savoy now extended from the Lake of Geneva to the Mediterranean, and from the Saône to the Sesia. Amadeus threw all the weight of his power on the side of the emperor, and Sigismund in 1416 erected the counties of Savoy and Piedmont into duchies. At this time, too, the duke recovered the fief of Piedmont, which had been granted to Philip, prince of Achaia, by Amadeus V. The county of Vercelli afterwards rewarded him for joining the league against the duke of Milan, but in 1434 a plot against his life made him put into execution a plan he had long formed, of retiring to a monastery. He accordingly made his son Louis lieutenant-general of the dukedom, and assumed the habit of the knights of St. Maurice. But he was not destined to find the repose he sought. The prelates assembled at the council of Bâle voted the deposition of Pope Eugenius IV, and elected Amadeus in his place, as Felix V. He abdicated his dukedom definitely, but without much gain in temporal honours, for the schism continued until the death of Eugenius in 1447, shortly after which it was healed by the honourable submission of Felix to Nicholas V. The early years of Louis’ reign were under the guidance of his father, and peace and prosperity blessed his people; but he afterwards made an alliance with the dauphin which brought him into conflict with Charles VII of France, though a lasting reconciliation was soon effected. His son Amadeus IX succeeded in 1465, but, though his virtues led to his beatification, his bodily sufferings made him assign the regency to his wife Yolande, a daughter of Charles VII. He died in 1472, when his son Philibert I succeeded to the throne and to his share in the contests of Yolande with her brother and brothers-in-law. His reign lasted only ten years, when he was succeeded by his brother Charles I. This prince raised for a time by his valour the drooping fortunes of his house, but he died in 1489 at the age of thirty-one, having inherited from his aunt, Charlotte of Lusignan, her pretensions to the titular kingdoms of Cyprus, Jerusalem, and Armenia. He was succeeded by his son Charles II, an infant, who, dying in 1496, was followed by Philip II, brother of Amadeus XI. He died in 1497, leaving Philibert II, who succeeded him, and Charles III, who ascended the throne on his brother’s death in 1504. In spite of himself Charles was drawn into the wars of the period, but the decisive victory of Francis at Marignano gave the duke the opportunity of negotiating the conference at Bologna which led to the conclusion of peace in 1516. Charles was less fortunate in the part he took in the wars between Francis I and Charles V, the brother-in-law of his wife. He tried to maintain a strict neutrality, but his attendance at the emperor’s coronation at Bologna in 1530 was imperative in his double character of kinsman and vassal. The visit was fatal to him, for he was rewarded with the county of Asti, and this so displeased the French king that on the revolt of Geneva to Protestantism in 1532, Francis sent help to the citizens. Berne and Fribourg did likewise, and so expelled the duke from Lausanne and Vaud. Charles now sided definitely with the emperor, and Francis at once raised some imaginary claims to his states. On their rejection the French army marched into Savoy, descended on Piedmont, and seized Turin (1536). Charles V came to the aid of his ally, and invested the city, but was obliged to make peace. France kept Savoy, and the emperor occupied Piedmont, so that only Nice remained to the duke. On the resumption of hostilities in 1541 Piedmont again suffered. In 1544 the Treaty of Crespy restored his states to Charles, but the terms were not carried out, and he died of grief in 1553. His only surviving son, Emmanuel Philibert, succeeded to the rights, but not the domains of his ancestors. On the abdication of Charles V the duke was appointed governor of the Low Countries, and in 1557 the victory of St. Quentin marked him as one of the first generals of his time. Such services could not go unrewarded, and the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis restored him his states, with certain exceptions still to be held by France and Spain. One of the conditions of the treaty also provided for the marriage of the duke with Margaret of France, sister of Henry II. The evacuation of the places held by them was faithfully carried out by the contracting powers, and Emmanuel Philibert occupied himself in strengthening his military and naval forces, until his death in 1580 prevented the execution of his ambitious designs. His son Charles Emmanuel I, called the Great, threw in his lot with Spain, and in 1590 invaded Provence and was received by the citizens of Aix. His intention was doubtless to revive the ancient kingdom of Arles, but his plans were frustrated by the accession of Henry IV to the throne of France.[e]

[1482-1601 A.D.]

By his treaty with Henry, in the year 1601, Charles Emmanuel exchanged his Savoyard county of Bresse for the Italian marquisate of Saluzzo. By this arrangement, the duke of Savoy sacrificed a fertile province to acquire a barren and rocky territory; but he excluded the French from an easy access into Piedmont, and strengthened his Italian frontier. By consolidating his states, he gained a considerable advance towards the future independence of his family; and the superiority of his policy over that of Henry IV in this transaction occasioned the remark of a contemporary, that the French king had bargained like a peddler, and the Savoyard duke like a king.

From this epoch, the house of Savoy became almost exclusively an Italian power, and its princes, to use the language of one of their historians, thenceforth viewed the remains of their transmontane possessions only as a nobleman, moving in the splendour of a court, regards the ancient and neglected fief from which he derives his title. Charles Emmanuel found that the improvement effected in the geographical posture of his states immediately increased his importance; and his alliance was courted both by France and Spain. But during the remainder of his long reign, his own restless and overweening ambition, and the natural difficulties of his situation, placed as he was with inferior strength between two mighty rivals, entailed many calamities on his dominions. He made an unsuccessful attempt in 1602 to surprise Geneva by an escalade in the night, and after a disgraceful repulse concluded a peace, which recognised the independence of that republic. Ten years later, he endeavoured, as we have seen, to wrest Montferrat from the house of Gonzaga; but being violently opposed by Spain, and weakly supported by France, he was compelled, after several years of hostilities, to submit his claim to the decision of the emperor—or, in other words, to abandon it altogether. Such checks to his ambition were, however, of little importance, in comparison with the reverses consequent upon the share which he took in the war of the Mantuan succession (1628).

[1601-1634 A.D.]

In that contest he was induced, by the hope of partitioning Montferrat with the Spaniards, to unite with them against the new duke of Mantua and the French his supporters; and he suffered heavily in this alliance. When Louis XIII, at the head of a gallant army, forced the strong pass of Susa against the duke and his troops, and overran all Piedmont, Charles Emmanuel was compelled to purchase the deliverance of his states by signing a separate peace, and leaving the fortress of Susa as a pledge in the hands of the conquerors. They insisted further that he should act offensively against his former allies; but Louis XIII and his great minister Richelieu were no sooner recalled into France by the war against the Protestants, than the versatile duke, resenting their tyranny, immediately resumed his league with Spain.

The possession of Susa rendered the French masters of the gates of the Savoyard dominions; and as soon as Richelieu had triumphantly concluded the war against the Huguenots, he returned to the Alps. He was invested by his master with a supreme military command, which disgraced his priestly functions; and he poured the forces of France again into Piedmont. All Savoy was conquered by the French king in person; and above half of Piedmont was seized by his forces under the warlike cardinal. Amidst so many cruel reverses, oppressed by the overwhelming strength of his enemies, and abandoned by his Spanish allies, who made no vigorous efforts to arrest the progress of the French, Charles Emmanuel suddenly breathed his last, after a reign of fifty years (1630).

Victor Amadeus I, his eldest son and successor, was the husband of Christina, daughter of Henry IV of France, and therefore disposed to ally himself with her country. Almost immediately after his accession to the ducal crown, he entered into negotiations with Richelieu, which terminated in a truce. In the following year, the general peace, which concluded the war of the Mantuan succession, was signed at Cherasco (1631). By this treaty, the new duke of Savoy recovered all his dominions except Pinerolo (Pignerol), which he was compelled to cede to the French; who, although Richelieu restored Susa to Victor Amadeus, thus retained possession of the passes of the Alps by Briançon and the valley of Exilles. Victor Amadeus was not inferior to his father either in courage or abilities; but he was not equally restless and intriguing. Submitting to circumstances beyond his control, he endured the ascendency which France had acquired over his states, and the yet more galling pride of Richelieu, with temper and prudence. To the close of his short reign he maintained with good faith a close alliance with Louis XIII, which indeed it was scarcely optional with him to have rejected, and which, in 1634, involved him, as an auxiliary, in a new war undertaken by Richelieu against the house of Austria.

[1634-1657 A.D.]

The death of Victor Amadeus in 1637, while this contest was yet raging, was the prelude to still heavier calamities for his house and his subjects than either had known for nearly a century. He left two infant sons, the eldest of whom dying almost immediately after him, the succession devolved upon the other, Charles Emmanuel II, a boy of four years of age. By his testament, Victor Amadeus committed the regency of his states, and the care of his children, to his duchess Christina. The government of that princess was in the outset assailed by the secret machinations of Richelieu, and by the open hostility of the brothers of her late husband. Richelieu designed to imprison the sister, and to despoil the nephew of his own master; and he would have annexed their states to the French monarchy, under the plea that the care of the young prince and the regency of his duchy belonged of right to Louis XIII, as his maternal uncle. When the vigilance of Christina defeated the intention of the cardinal to surprise her at Vercelli, the sister of Louis XIII had still to endure all the despotic influence of her brother’s minister. The conduct of her husband’s relations left her however no alternative but to purchase the aid of the French against them.

Both the brothers of Victor Amadeus, the cardinal Maurice, and Prince Thomas (founder of the branch of Savoy-Carignano), had quarrelled with the late duke, and withdrawn from his court to embrace the party of his enemies; the one entered the service of the emperor, the other that of the king of Spain in the Low Countries. On the death of Victor Amadeus, they returned to Piedmont only to trouble the administration of Christina by themselves laying claim to the regency; and at length, on her resisting their pretensions, they openly asserted them in arms. The two princes were supported by the house of Austria; the duchess-regent was protected by France; and the whole country of Savoy and Piedmont was at once plunged into the aggravated horrors of foreign and civil war. In the first year of this unhappy contest, the capital was delivered into the hands of Prince Thomas by his partisans; and the regent, escaping with difficulty on this surprise into the citadel of Turin, was compelled to consign the defence of that fortress to the French, who treacherously retained the deposit for eighteen years. In like manner, they acquired possession of several important places; the Spaniards on their part became masters of others; and while the regent and her brothers-in-law were contending for the government of Piedmont, they were betrayed by the ill faith and ambition of their respective protectors.

A reconciliation in the ducal family was at length effected by the tardy discovery that mutual injuries could terminate only in common ruin. The two princes deserted the party of Spain, and succeeded in recovering for their house most of the fortresses which they had aided the Spaniards in reducing. The duchess-mother retained the regency; and the princes were gratified with the same appanages by which she had originally offered to purchase their friendship. Still the French remained all powerful in Piedmont; and if death had not interrupted the projects of Richelieu, it is probable that the ducal house of Savoy would have been utterly sacrificed to his skilful and unprincipled policy, and that its dominions would have been permanently annexed to the monarchy of France. Even under the government of his more pacific successor, Mazarin, it was not until the year 1657 that the French garrison was withdrawn from the citadel of Turin; and this act of justice was only extorted from that minister as the price of his niece’s marriage into the ducal family of Savoy. The exhaustion of Spain and the internal troubles of France had totally prevented the active prosecution in northern Italy of the long war between those powers. But the embers of hostility were not wholly extinguished in Piedmont until the Peace of the Pyrenees, by which Charles Emmanuel II recovered all his duchy except Pinerolo and its Alpine passes, and these the French still retained (1659).

[1657-1692 A.D.]

The termination of the minority of Charles Emmanuel II, in 1648, had put an end to the intrigues of his uncles. But the duke continued to submit to the ambitious and able control of his mother until her death; and his subsequent reign was in no respect brilliant. His states, however, after the Treaty of the Pyrenees, enjoyed a long interval of repose; and though the early close of his life in 1675 subjected them to another minority, it proved neither turbulent nor calamitous, as his own had done. His son, the celebrated Victor Amadeus II, was only nine years old when he nominally commenced his reign under the regency of his mother. The princess, a daughter of the French house of Nemours, had all the ambition without the talents which had distinguished the duchess Christina. Surrounded by French favourites and by the partisans of that nation, she was wholly subservient to the will of Louis XIV; and Victor Amadeus, on attaining the age of manhood, gave the first indications of the consummate political ability for which he became afterwards so famous, by his decent address in dispossessing his reluctant parent and her faction of all influence in public affairs, without having recourse to actual violence.

The policy of the duke soon excited the suspicion of Louis XIV; and after exhausting all the resources of negotiation and intrigue for some years, to gain him over to his purpose of wresting Milan from the Spaniards, the French monarch resolved to disarm him. But Victor Amadeus penetrated his designs, and anticipated their execution. He was too good a politician, and too sensible of his own weakness, not to discover that, if he consented to open a free passage to Louis XIV through his dominions, and to aid him in effecting the conquest of Lombardy, he should speedily be despoiled in his turn, and reduced to the rank of a vassal of the French crown. He therefore acceded to the league of Augsburg between the empire, England, Spain, and Holland; and his subjects eagerly seconded him in his resolution rather to encounter the dangers of a contest with the gigantic power of France, than to submit without a struggle to the imperious and humiliating demands of Louis.

The commencement of the war in Piedmont was marked by a torrent of misfortune, which might have overwhelmed a prince of less fortitude than Victor Amadeus with sudden despair. Although he was joined by a Spanish army at the opening of hostilities, the French, who commanded the gates of Italy by the possession of Pinerolo had already assembled in force in Piedmont. They were led by Catinat, who deserves to be mentioned among the most accomplished and scientific captains of his own or of any age; and the superior abilities of this great commander triumphed over the military talents of the young duke. At the battle of Staffarda (1690) in the first campaign, the allies were totally defeated; and great part both of Savoy and Piedmont was almost immediately afterwards reduced by the conquerors. Victor Amadeus was however undismayed; he continued the war with energy and skill; and the support of his allies and his own activity had the effect of balancing the fortune of the contest. Penetrating into France, in 1692, he was even enabled to retaliate upon his enemies by this diversion, for the ravage of his dominions; and although Catinat, in the fourth campaign, inflicted at Marsaglia upon the Piedmontese, Austrian, and Spanish armies, under the duke in person and the famous prince Eugene, a yet more calamitous and memorable defeat than that at Staffarda, the allies speedily recovered from the disaster.

But it comes not within our purpose to repeat the often-told tale of military operations, which belong to the general history of Europe. After six years of incessant warfare, Victor Amadeus was still in an attitude to render his neutrality an important object for France to gain, and one which he had himself every reason to desire. So that it could be attained with advantage to himself, he was little scrupulous in abandoning his allies; and the conditions which he extorted from Louis XIV had all the results of victory. By the separate peace concluded between France and Savoy at Turin, Louis XIV abandoned the possession of Pinerolo and restored all his conquests in Savoy and Piedmont; but the most material stipulation of the treaty was the neutrality of all Italy, to which the contracting parties equally bound themselves to oblige all other powers to accede. To enforce this article, Victor Amadeus did not hesitate to join his arms to those of France against his former allies; and the entrance of his forces, in conjunction with the army of Catinat, into the Milanese territories, immediately compelled the emperor and the king of Spain to consent to a suspension of arms in the peninsula.

A Musketeer of the Early Seventeenth Century

The allies of Victor Amadeus might justly reproach him with a desertion of their cause, and perhaps even with the aggravation of perfidy; but he deserved the gratitude of Italy, if not for his selfish policy, at least for its fruits. In closing the gates of his own frontiers, he had skilfully provided also for the repose of the peninsula and its evacuation by the French. All Italy regarded him as a liberator; the security of his own dominions was effected, and his power and consequence were prodigiously augmented. Thus, by establishing the independence of his states, he prepared the claim of his house to the assumption of the royal title among the powers of Europe, to which he elevated it in the beginning of the new century.

The increasing power of the sovereigns of Piedmont was a foreboding of evil for the only republic of the Middle Ages which had partially escaped the storms of despotism in that quarter of Italy; and Genoa had already gained, during the seventeenth century, sufficient experience of the dangers of her vicinity to the princes of the house of Savoy. In the Grison war, between France and the house of Austria, the republic was involved by her dependence upon Spain; and the share which she took in the contest enabled the duke of Savoy, then in alliance with France, to draw down the weight of the French arms upon her. Besides being actuated by the usual rapacity of his ambition, with the hope of annexing the Genoese territory to his states, Charles Emmanuel I had several causes of offence against the republic. Her rulers had before given assistance to the Spaniards against him; they had attempted to control him in the purchase of the fief of Zucarel from the family of Carretto; and the populace of Genoa had insulted him by defacing his portrait in their city during the excesses of a riot. He therefore pointed out Genoa to his allies for an easy and important conquest; and while he overran the Ligurian country, a French army of thirty thousand men under the constable de Lesdiguières advanced to the siege of the republican capital. Though the Genoese were unprovided against this sudden attack, they were animated by the brave spirit, and the eloquence of one of their fellow-citizens, a member of the illustrious house of Doria, to oppose a firm resistance to the besiegers; and their gallant defence of the city was converted into a triumph, at the moment when they were reduced to extremity. A powerful Spanish armament, equipped with unusual vigour, arrived to their succour from Naples and Milan; the French were compelled to raise the siege; and the peace, which shortly followed these hostilities, served only to cover the duke of Savoy with the disgrace of merited failure in his designs against the existence of the republic.

[1624-1628 A.D.]

The secret hostility which Charles Emmanuel cherished against Genoa menaced her, a few years later, with more imminent perils; since the revengeful spirit of the duke was associated with the discontent of a large party in the republic. We have formerly noticed the constitution of the sovereign oligarchy of Genoa, and its tendency, by the extinction of some noble houses, and the reduction of numbers in others, to narrow the circle of political rights. The surviving body, meanwhile, were sparing in the use of the law, which authorised them to admit ten new families annually to a share in their privileges of sovereignty. The senate either began to elude it altogether, or applied it only to childless or aged individuals. Thus, before the middle of the seventeenth century, the number of persons whose names appeared in the libro d’oro—the golden volume of privileged nobility—had dwindled to about seven hundred. A law was then passed, by which the whole of these exclusive proprietors of the rights of citizenship thenceforth took their seats in the great council, on reaching the age of manhood, instead of entering it by rotation, as had formerly been the practice, when the republic was represented by a more comprehensive aristocracy.

While the arrogance and the individual importance of the members of the oligarchy were increased in proportion to this diminution in their numbers, another class, that of the unprivileged aristocracy of birth and wealth, had multiplied in the state. Many ancient houses, possessors of rural fiefs in Liguria, and invested with titles of nobility, had been originally omitted in the roll of citizenship; many other families of newer pretensions had since acquired riches and distinction by commercial industry, and accidents of fortune; and the union of all these constituted an order, which rivalled the oligarchy in the usual sources of pride, and far outweighed them in numbers. Affected superiority and contempt on the one hand, and mortification and envy on the other, produced reciprocal hatred between these branches of the Genoese aristocracy; and their divisions inspired the duke of Savoy with the hope of plunging the state into an anarchy, by which he might profit.

[1628-1672 A.D.]

Pursuing his master’s views, the ambassador of Charles Emmanuel at Genoa selected a wealthy merchant of the unprivileged aristocracy, Giulio Cesare Vachero, for the agitator and leader of a conspiracy to overthrow the oligarchical constitution. Vachero, although engaged in the occupation of commerce, aspired to move in the sphere of nobility. His immense riches, his numerous retinue, his splendid establishment, rivalled the magnificence of the Fregosi, the Adorni, the popolani grandi of other days. He always appeared armed and in martial costume—the characteristics of the gentleman of the times; he was surrounded by bravos; and he unscrupulously employed these desperate men in the atrocious gratification of his pride and his vengeance. He found sufficient occupation for their poniards in the numerous petty affronts, which the privileged nobles delighted to heap on a person of his condition. Vachero was stung to the soul by all the scorn and disdain which the highly born affect for upstart and unwarranted pretensions—by the contemptuous denial of the courtesy of a passing salutation, the supercilious stare, the provoking smile of derision, the taunting innuendo, the jest, the sneer. Every one of these slights or insults offered to himself or his wife was washed out in the blood of the noble offenders (1628).

But all these covert assassinations could not satiate the revengeful spirit nor heal the rankling irritation of Vachero; and he was easily instigated by the arts of the Savoyard ambassador to organise a plot, and to place himself at its head, for the destruction of the oligarchy. He knew that his discontent was shared by all the citizens like himself, whose names had not been admitted into the libro d’oro; and he reckoned on the co-operation of very many of the feudal seigniors of Liguria, whose ancient houses had never been inserted in that register, and who found their consequence eclipsed in the city, by their detested and more fortunate rivals of the oligarchy. He readily induced a numerous party to embrace his design; he secretly increased the force of his retainers and bravos; and he lavished immense sums among the lower people, to secure their fidelity without entrusting them with his plans. The day was already named for the attack of the palace of government: it was determined to overpower the foreign guard; to cast the senators from the windows; to massacre all the individuals embraced in the privileged order; to change the constitution of the republic; and finally, to invest Vachero with the supreme authority of the state, by the title of doge, and under the protection of the duke of Savoy. But at the moment when the conspiracy was ripe for execution, it was betrayed to the government by a retainer of Vachero, who had been appointed to act a subordinate share in it. Vachero himself, and a few other leading personages in the plot, were secured before the alarm was given to the rest, who immediately fled. The guilt of Vachero and his accomplices was clearly established; the proofs against them were even supported by the conduct of the duke of Savoy, who openly avowed himself the protector of their enterprise; and notwithstanding his arrogant threat of revenging their punishment upon the republic, the senate did not hesitate to order their immediate execution.

The insolent menaces of Charles Emmanuel were vain; and the firmness of the Genoese government produced no material consequences. During the distractions which closed his own reign, and which, filling that of his son, extended through the minority of his grandsons, the republic remained undisturbed by the aggressions of the house of Savoy. In this long period of above forty years, the repose of Genoa was disturbed neither by any other foreign hostilities, nor by intestine commotions. A second war, which at length broke out between the republic and the duchy of Savoy, during the reign of Charles Emmanuel II, scarcely merits our notice, for its circumstances and its conclusion were alike insignificant; and during the remainder of the seventeenth century, the Genoese oligarchy were only startled from their dream of pride and security by a single event—the most humiliating, until our own times at least, in the long annals of their republic.

When Louis XIV became master of Casale by purchase from the duke of Mantua, he demanded of the republic of Genoa permission to establish a depot at the port of Savona, for the free supply of salt to the inhabitants of his new city, and the transit of warlike stores and recruits for his garrison. The Genoese government were sufficiently acquainted with the character of the French monarch to anticipate that their compliance with this demand would terminate in his appropriating the port of Savona altogether to himself; and cautiously exerting the option of refusal which they unquestionably possessed, they eluded the application. With equal right and more boldness, they fitted out a few galleys to guard their coasts against any surprise, and to protect their revenue on salt. Louis imperiously required them to disarm this squadron; and then, driven beyond all the limits of endurance, and justly incensed at such an insult upon the independence of the republic, the senate treated the summons with contempt.

But the oligarchy of Genoa had not sufficiently measured the weakness of their state, or the implacable and unbounded pride of the powerful tyrant. A French armament of fourteen sail of the line, with a long train of frigates, galleys, and bomb ketches, suddenly appeared before Genoa, and a furious bombardment of three days, in which fifty thousand shells and carcasses are said to have been thrown into the place, reduced to a heap of ruins half the numerous and magnificent palaces, which had obtained for Genoa the appellation of “the Proud.” The senate were compelled to save the remains of their capital from total destruction by an unqualified submission; and the terms dictated by the arrogance of the French monarch, obliged the doge and four of the principal senators, to repair in their robes of state to Paris, to sue for pardon and to supplicate his clemency. The epithets of glory have often been prostituted on the character of Louis XIV, by those who are easily dazzled with the glare of false splendour; but of all the wholesale outrages upon humanity which disgraced the detestable ambition of that heartless destroyer of his species, this unprovoked assault upon a defenceless people, merely to gratify his insatiable vanity, was—if we except the horrible devastation of the Palatinate—the most barbarous and wanton.