[1706-1714 A.D.]
Before giving orders for the bombardment, La Feuillade, who commanded the besiegers, sent word to the duke to inquire where he was quartered, that he might spare him. “On the walls of the citadel,” replied the duke. The defence being well ordered, the duke made a sally with a few brave and tried followers. Thus threatened at close quarters, hearing distant rumours of trouble, suffering, and every kind of want, the intrepid men of Turin held out. The fury of the artillery, the laying of mines, the assaults, lasted three months, but day and night the citizens above and below ground watched and combated. Even from the orphanage the orphans came forward to labour in the mines. Aid was expected, but it came not; though the ever active Eugene was commissioned to bring reinforcements. Eventually the two princes met, and together from the hill of Superga they drew up the plan of battle, the duke promising to erect there a church in thanksgiving if the victory was his.
Turin
Turin was in peril. On the 29th of August a large number of the enemy reached a postern of the citadel unseen; a mine was laid at the spot, but could not be fired without danger; in this imminent peril Pietro Nicco d’Andorno, of Biella, made the companies retire, and like a new Decius offered himself to die; the match being applied, he was buried with the French under the ruins. This great deed brought glory on Turin, and the fame of it shall live forever in the country. Nevertheless the French occupied the castle of Pianezza, on the left bank of the Dora Riparia; it was imperative that the Piedmontese should dislodge them from this place, but for this it was necessary to take them unawares and they knew not how. But an old peasant woman, by name Maria Bricca, discovered on the night of the 5th of September that instead of keeping watch the French were amusing themselves, and she immediately ran to give the news in the Italian camp. At the head of the soldiers she led the way by a subterranean passage into the castle, and, hatchet in hand, crying “Viva Savoia” she informed the enemy they were prisoners.
Two days later Victor and Eugene, uniting their talents and forces, inflicted on the French a crushing defeat, so that twenty thousand were left dead on the field and the survivors fled beyond the Alps. The Franco-Spaniards evacuated Naples; and the Austrians, solely because they were the new lords, were greeted as friends and liberators. The war was continued outside Italy, and later the exhausted powers were brought to signing the Treaty of Utrecht 1713, confirmed the following year at Rastatt. By this treaty Austria obtained Milan, Naples, and Sardinia; Victor Amadeus obtained the far distant Sicily, Montferrat, Lomellina, and Val di Susa, with the title of king; a few small states were distributed—Mantua, Mirandola, and afterwards, Guastalla.
This aggrandisement of the house of Savoy and also that of Prussia was specially insisted upon by England, then the peacemaker of the continent and arbitrator in this peace, for which reason she intervened between France and Austria, and preserved European equilibrium. Thus were favoured the legitimate ambitions of two minor states, Piedmont and Prussia, that aimed at a high mark, and in the similarity of their fortunes they became the bulwarks of two nations, the hope and pride of two countries.[d]
WAR OF THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE
