For nearly a century following, the prosperity of the duchy was overcast; feeble princes, alternating with feebler regencies and their attendant evils, held the reins of government, and Piedmont became the arena on which the French and Imperialists contended. The Dukes of Savoy, alternately forced into alliance with Francis I. of France and the Emperor Charles V., the position of their territories rendering it impossible for them to preserve neutrality, lost equally from friend and foe. Far from being able to follow up the cherished policy of their family, and as the reward of their allegiance obtain “a few leaves of that artichoke Lombardy,” to the possession of which they had ever aspired, they saw themselves gradually stripped of their ancestral dominions, till a single town in Piedmont was all that remained in their hands.
The singular firmness and energy of character which distinguishes these Highlanders of Italy, as they are termed, seems but to have gained strength from these vicissitudes. In the reign of Duke Emmanuel Philibert, “the Iron-headed,” we find the House of Savoy restored to more than its pristine lustre, and reinstated in its former possessions, with the single exception of Geneva, which in the general turmoil had succeeded in establishing its independence. At a later period this prince, to strengthen his position in Italy, exchanged with Henri Quatre, Bourg en Bresse, Val Romey, and Bugey in Savoy, against the Marquisate of Saluzzo, adjoining Pignerol, at the foot of the Alps. This province had long been in possession of the French, and its transfer to Piedmont, though purchased by a sacrifice as respected extent of territory, was looked upon as a great step towards national independence, and the adoption of a clearly-defined Italian policy.
An evil phase in the history of Piedmont is the persecution of the Waldenses or Vaudois. Established in their sub-alpine valleys and fastnesses from a very remote period, these sturdy champions of primitive Christianity were a constant source of umbrage to the papal see, who incited the princes of Savoy, as loyal servants of the Church, to extirpate such foul heresy from their States. One of the most terrible of the ruthless crusades to which they were subjected was that in 1655, made familiar to most of us by Milton's noble hymn, “Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints,” and Cromwell's energetic remonstrance with the court of Turin in their behalf. It was not till the end of the seventeenth century that the sword of persecution was finally sheathed, although considerable restrictions still continued to be imposed upon the Vaudois, who were, nevertheless, remarkable for their faithful allegiance to their sovereign, and for their courage and hardihood as soldiers. The constitution of 1848 finally secured them the right to exercise their worship in any part of the Sardinian dominions; and placed them on perfect equality with the Catholic population. A Waldensian, Signor Malan, sits in the Chamber of Deputies.
Little anticipating the tolerance their successors would one day exhibit, the heresy, no less than the independence of Geneva, was a grievous thorn in the flesh to the Dukes of Savoy, who could not easily forego their former right to its dominion; and in 1602, a formidable expedition was secretly organized against it by Charles Emmanuel I., with the concurrence of the courts of Rome, Paris, and Madrid. Three hundred volunteers from the main body of the army had actually, in the dead of the night, succeeded in scaling the walls, when the premature explosion of a petard, designed to force open the city-gates, gave the alarm. The inhabitants, some hastily armed, others half-clad as they sprang from their slumbers, rushed into the streets, and drove back the invaders with great loss. Finding their retreat cut off by the destruction of the ladders by which they had ascended, the few survivors flung themselves from the ramparts into the ditch, and carried the intelligence of their defeat to the Duke of Savoy, who was advancing to reap the enjoyment of the triumph he already deemed secure. The Escalade, as it is termed, is justly celebrated in the annals of Geneva, which, six months after, concluded a treaty with Savoy, on terms as flattering to herself as they were mortifying to the duke, who said in his last illness “that those rebels of Geneva weighed like lead upon his stomach.”
The opening of the eighteenth century again beheld Piedmont the theatre of bloody wars, in consequence of the disputed succession to the crown of Spain. The duke sided with the imperial party, which England also supported, and saw his States overrun by the French, who for some time held possession of Turin. The siege and recapture of his capital—in which Victor Amadeus II. was aided by his cousin, the celebrated Prince Eugene, Marlborough's colleague—was the turning point in his fortunes. The latter part of his reign was marked with signal prosperity. Invested with the title of King of Sardinia, the island of that name having been transferred from the possession of Spain, and bestowed on him as some compensation for his losses and sacrifices in the war, he devoted himself to the embellishment of Turin, the formation of a standing army, and the restoration of the finances of the State, leaving behind him a reputation for indomitable energy and perseverance, on which the historians of Piedmont dwell with pardonable pride.
His successor steadily pursued his policy, and obtained some part of the Milanese territory—a few more leaves of the artichoke, towards which, like every enterprising prince of his line, his political views were constantly directed.
The outbreak of the first French Revolution again threatened the House of Savoy with destruction. Almost simultaneously, in 1792, the territory of Nice, and the whole of Savoy, were invaded, and occupied by the troops of the Directory; a few years later, Piedmont was incorporated into the French dominions, and Sardinia was all that remained to Charles Emmanuel IV., who, in 1796, succeeded to what he bitterly designated as “a veritable crown of thorns.”
From this utter prostration, this dynasty, with that singular rebound observable in its annals, was recalled in 1814 to its continental possessions, with the addition of Genoa, who reluctantly saw herself degraded from her independent position as a republic, to form part of a kingdom which had long excited her jealousy and apprehension.
Between this period and 1848 the history of Piedmont offers little of interest. The quiet development of its internal resources, the accumulating wealth of its exchequer, the minute care bestowed on its army, being less conspicuous to a general observer, than the severity of its police, the rigour with which all political freedom of speech or writing was proscribed, and the especial protection which the Jesuits enjoyed. As before remarked, the Sardinian Government was looked upon as one of the most despotic of Europe, and its king as the most priest-ridden of princes.
Even the example of Pius IX. did not at first produce any perceptible results; and for more than a year after the famous amnesty to the Romans not a change in the existing system at Turin foreshadowed the coming reforms.