—Trans. W.S. ROSE.
We met on alighting at the door of a large spacious inn, two ladies who had very much the appearance of the two damsels at the inn where Don Quixote alighted and received his order of knighthood; but, in spite of their amorous glances and a decided leer of invitation, I had like Sacripante's steed more need of "riposo e d'esca che di nuova giostra." The usual Italian supper was put before us, and very good it was, viz., Imprimis: A minestra (soup), generally made of beef or veal with vermicelli or macaroni in it and its never failing accompaniment in Italy, grated Parmesan cheese. Then a lesso (bouilli) of beef, veal or mutton, or all three; next an umido (fricassée) of cocks' combs and livers, a favourite Italian dish; then a frittura of chickens' livers, fish or vegetables fried. Then an umido or ragout of veal, fish with sauce; and lastly, an arrosto (roast) of fowls, veal, game, or all three. The arrosto is generally very dry and done to cinders almost. Vegetables are served up With the umidi, but plain boiled, leaving it optional to you to use melted butter or oil with them. A salad is a constant concomitant of the arrosto. A desert or fruit concludes the repast. Wine is drank at discretion. The wine of Lombardy is light and not ill flavored; it is far weaker than any wine I know of, but it has an excellent quality, that of facilitating digestion. A cup of strong coffee is generally made for you in the morning, for which you pay three or four soldi (sous), and in giving five or six soldi to the waiter, all your expenses are paid supposing you are spesato, i.e., that the vetturino pays for your supper and bed; if not, your charges are left to the conscience of the aubergiste, which in Italy is in general of prodigious width. I therefore advise every traveller who goes with a vetturino to be a spesato, otherwise he will have to pay four or five times as much and not be a whit better regaled. The vetturini generally pay from three to three and a half francs for the supper and bed of their passengers. As the vetturini invariably make a halt of an hour and half or two hours at mid-day in some town or village, this halt enables you to take your déjeuner à la fourchette, which you pay for yourself, unless you stipulate for the payment of that also with the vetturino by paying something more, say one a half franc per diem for that. In this part, and indeed in the whole of the north of Italy not a female servant is to be seen at the inns and men make the beds. It is otherwise, I understand, in Tuscany.
The whole appearance of the country from Asti to Alexandria presents an immense plain extremely fertile, but the crops of corn being off the ground, the landscape would not be pleasing to the eye, were it not relieved by the frequency of mulberry trees and the vines hung in festoons from tree to tree. The villages and farmhouses on this road are extremely solid and well built. We arrived at Alexandria about twelve o'clock, and after breakfast I hired a horse to visit the field of battle of Marengo, which is in the neighbourhood of this city, Marengo itself being a village five miles distant from Alexandria. Arrived on the plain, I was conducted to the spot where the first Consul stood at the time that he perceived the approach of Desaix's division. I figured to myself the first Consul on his white charger, halting his army, then in some confusion, riding along the line exposed to a heavy fire from the Austrians, who cannonaded the whole length of the line; aides-de-camp and orderlies falling around him, himself calm and collected, "spying 'vantage," and observing that the Austrian deployment was too extended, and their centre thereby weakened, suddenly profiting of this circumstance to order Desaix's division to advance and lead the charge which decided the victory on that memorable day, which, according to Mascheroni:
splende
Nell' abisso de' secoli, qual Sole.
The whole field of battle is an extensive plain, with but few trees, and to use Campbell's lines:
every turf beneath the feet
Marks out a soldier's sepulchre.
The Column, erected to commemorate this glorious victory, has been thrown down by order of the Austrian government—a poor piece of puerile spite, but worthy of legitimacy. Alexandria is, or rather was, for the fortifications no longer exist, more remarkable for being an important military post than for the beauty of the city itself. There is, however, a fine and spacious Place, which serves as a parade for the garrison, and being planted with trees by the French when they held it, forms an agreeable promenade. The fortifications were blown up by the Austrians before the place was given over to the Sardinian authorities, a flagrant breach of faith and contract, since by the treaty of 1814 they were bound to give up all the fortified places that were restored or ceded to the King of Sardinia in the same state in which they were found when the French evacuated 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 rôle 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 Hôtel di San Marco, which is close to the Piazza Grande, and alighted there. On the Piazza stands the Hôtel 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 hovels in our own country, and that we have never seen a stone edifice, till our arrival in Italy, for every town house which is not a shop is termed a palazzo, and they would conduct you to see all of them if you would be guided by them. I had an opportunity, during the two hours we halted here, of walking over the greater part of the city, after a hasty breakfast. Piacenza is a large handsome city; among the females that I saw in the streets the Spanish costume seems very prevalent, no doubt from being so long governed by a Spanish family.