“If thou had’st died as honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise
To shame the world again—
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night?”
It continued raining the remainder of the day, and we employed ourselves in writing letters, and making preparations for our departure on the morrow, being obliged to forego visiting the churches, palaces, theatres, and other interesting objects of the place. It is true, we looked into two or three churches, but they seemed to possess nothing out of the ordinary way. The streets of Turin, particularly the new part, being laid out at right angles, makes it easy to traverse the town; we could not but notice the thinness of population, notwithstanding we knew the city was proportionally thickly inhabited—this was no doubt to be partly accounted for, from numbers having, during the summer season, retired to their country-seats, and partly to the late political occurrences, which have created a great distrust, and suspicion of those who remained, many of whom were at this time apprehensive of arrest and imprisonment, on account of their conduct or opinions, so that they were afraid to stir from out of their houses—nay, many had actually absconded on these accounts. But I do not profess to detail the political history of the countries I visited.
On Sunday, the 15th of July, we took our leave of Turin, with six new passengers in our voiture. We passed through Rivoli, which has a royal palace, to Ambrogia, where we breakfasted; we now entered defiles of mountains, the road becoming heavy; the rain, however, which had been before incessant through the morning, began to clear off, and we had a fine afternoon, which in some respects compensated for the badness of the roads. A new road from Turin to Susa, has lately been laid out by the Sardinian government, part of which we traversed, but found it at present very uncomfortable, consisting of a mere bed of stones. We reached Susa, about seven o’clock, an ancient town, situated amidst rocky eminences, on the banks of the Dura, here a small stream, but before it reaches Turin, increased into a considerable river.
The town of Susa is more respectable than we had expected to find it, but thinly inhabited, as notwithstanding it was a fine Sunday’s evening, very few people were walking about. My friend remarked, both here and in the places we had passed through this day, that the men were of diminutive stature, and ludicrously dressed, wearing cocked-hats, very long tails, and black breeches, and frequently without either shoes or stockings.
In the morning we set out from Susa at three o’clock, with the voiture drawn by five mules, our driver reserving his horses until we had ascended Mount Cenis. Soon after leaving Susa, we travelled over an alternation of moderate acclivity and level ground, until we passed Novalese, when the road became steep, notwithstanding it was sound and good, and occasionally took a winding direction to diminish the labour of ascent. About half-way up, we passed a miserable village, named Ferrieres. At this point we rested a while, that my friend might contemplate the stupendous and sublime scenery, amidst which we had been for some time making our progress.