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 role 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 Hotel di
San Marco, which is close to the Piazza Grande, and alighted there. On
the Piazza stands the Hotel 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.
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