She
Followed My Advice And Passed Unobserved And Unmolested Into Milan.
On the
preceding evening at Castel-puster-lengo at supper I asked whether she
thought the rigour of the Austrian government was also the offspring of the
French Revolution.
The Baroness had brought up her son in all these
feelings and particularly in a determined hatred of the Canton de Vaud; for
in the evening when we arrived at the inn and were sitting round the fire,
he would shake the burning faggots about and say: Voila la ville de
Lausanne en cendres! If he grows up with these ideas and acts upon them,
he stands a good chance of being shot in a duel by some Vaudois. It is a
pity to see a child so spoiled, for he was a very fine boy, tho' very
violent in his temper which probably he inherited from his mother. Somebody
at the pension Surpe at Milan who knew her told me that the Baroness was
of an aristocratic family and had married a rich bourgeois of Bern whom
she treated rather too much de haut en bas; in short that it was a
marriage quite a la George Dandin, till the poor man took it into his
head to die one day. At Turin we parted company, she for Genoa and I for
Lausanne.
From Turin to Lausanne.
I felt the cold very sensibly in the journey from Florence to Milan and
Turin. There is not a colder country in Europe than Lombardy in the winter.
The vicinity of the Alps contributes much to this; and the houses being
exceedingly large and having no stoves it is quite impossible that the
fireplaces can give heat sufficient to warm the rooms.
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