Piedmont

“ Novalesa is the town we stopped at, upon entering Piedmont; where the hollow sound of a heavy dashing torrent that has accompanied us hitherto, first grows faint, and the ideas of common life catch hold of one again; as the noise of it is heard from a greater distance, its stream grows wider, and its course more tranquil. ”

“ Piedmont is not a definite, limited State, living of its own vitality. It is Italy in the germ. It is the life of Italy, concentrated for a time at the foot of the Alps. . . . Italy, whatever happens, cannot become Piedmont. The centre of the national organism cannot be transferred to the extremity. ”

“ Piedmont, a district of Italy, formerly a principality, ruled by the house of Savoy, surrounded by the Alps, the Apennines, and the river Ticino; occupies the W. end of the great fertile valley of the Po, a hilly region rich in vines and mulberries, and a mountainous tract with forests and grazing land intersected by lovely valleys, which send streams down into the Po; the people are industrious; textile manufactures are extensive, and agriculture is skilful ”

“ Rebellion broke out in Piedmont, and an attempt was made to unite Revolt of Piedmont the troops of Piedmont with those of Lombardy. The King of Piedmont rather than sign the Spanish Constitution abdicated his throne. On the refusal of the King's brother, Charles Felix, to recognize a constitution, his cousin Charles Albert of Carignano was made the regent and commander of the troops. He advanced so cautiously that the conspirators at Milan dared not follow suit with a revolution of their own. ”

“ Piedmont has liberated, has adopted its first witness, the Waldenses; Piedmont has perhaps, in so doing, obtained for herself full amnesty from the Supreme Judge. Be it so!
I can now leave Turin with a good conscience. I have seen Monte Viso and M. de Cavour; but how am I to leave it? That is the question. Tidings arrive daily of the devastation occasioned by the floods; bridges are washed away; railways broken up; nearly all communication is uncertain; the road from Turin to Genoa is said to be impassable, and it was to Genoa that I now intended to proceed. ”

“ Between the two cities they could see the white ferry-boats on the water. Around to their right was Berkeley, and to their left the scattered villages between Oakland and San Leandro. Directly in the foreground was Piedmont, with its desultory dwellings and patches of farming land, and from Piedmont the land rolled down in successive waves upon Oakland.
"Look at it," said Daylight, extending his arm in a sweeping gesture. "A hundred thousand people there, and no reason there shouldn't be half a million. ”

“ Was it not for the defence of his native land, for service on Italian ground that he was needed? Such considerations were urged on the young men of Romagna in vain. Native land! Their native land was Romagna,—the flank of the Apennine, the banks of the Metauro, the shore of the Adriatic, the fat soil and fertile fields which make their district the granary of Italy. To their imagination Piedmont was as much a foreign country as France, or as China! A country the ways and manners, and, above all, the language of which were utterly and distastefully different from their own. ”

“ Whenever any one of them thought he perceived an opportunity to seize some neighbouring territory, he caught at it, reckless of collision with his powerful neighbours. The general upshot was that Savoy lost its old Swiss provinces and its old French provinces, and that Piedmont became the head and front of the new Kingdom of Sardinia. Equally important to Italy was the fact that, while the people of the other Italian provinces became more and more incapable of bearing arms or of making any real martial effort, the people of Piedmont gradually became a nation of soldiers. ”

“ These colline are of exquisite beauty in themselves, and from their sides the most magnificent views of Piedmont and the Alps extend themselves in every direction. The people are a well-grown comely race, kind and easy to get on with. ”

“ His indifference fell from him like a garment. The old passion of action awoke and he felt a new warmth in his breast. After all, the struggle was not yet over: though Piedmont had called in vain on the Italian states, an Italian sword might still be drawn in her service. If his people would not follow him against France he could still march against her alone. Old memories hummed in him at the thought. He recalled how his Piedmontese ancestors had gone forth against the same foe, and the stout Donnaz blood began to bubble in his veins.
A knock roused him and Gamba entered by the private way. ”

“ In the circumstances, Cavour decided that Piedmont must anticipate Garibaldi, occupy Umbria and the Marches and place Italy between the red-shirts and Rome. His excuse was the pope’s refusal to dismiss his foreign levies (September 7) . On the 11th of September a Piedmontese army of 35,000 men crossed the frontier at La Cattolica; on the 18th the pontifical army was crushed at Castelfidardo; and when, on the 29th, Ancona fell, Umbria and the Marches were in the power of Piedmont. On the 15th of October King Victor Emmanuel crossed the Neapolitan border at the head of his troops. ”

“ I have felt an intense desire to know the state of that province to which I had given them an appointment, as I felt assured it would be the field of my mission. Now, with a heart full of gratitude, I find an opening is presented in the valleys of Piedmont, when all other parts of Italy are closed against our efforts. I believe that the Lord has there hidden up a people amid the Alpine mountains, and it is the voice of the Spirit that I shall commence something of importance in that part of this dark nation. ”

“ To reach these counties flowing with mineral waters, the families from eastern Virginia and from South Carolina passed through a beautiful region of Virginia known as Piedmont, and those who had kinsfolk or acquaintances there usually stopped to pay them a visit. Consequently the Piedmont Virginians were generally too busy entertaining summer guests to visit the Springs themselves. Indeed, why should they? No more salubrious climate could be found than their own, and no scenery more grand and beautiful. ”

“ I find it quite too much even to relate the effect they produced upon our minds; for no words can adequately express our feelings of admiration and surprise!
We were now once more in Piedmont, and the road led us through the town of Arona, built upon the shores of the lake, which is full forty miles in length. We saw a picturesque figure of a peasant girl kneeling upon the banks, and laving (like a young naiad) her long tresses in the stream. ”

“ There, in the recesses of Piedmont, where the streams of the Pelice, the Angrogne, the Clusone and others cleave the sides of the Alps into valleys which converge at Susa, a settlement of the Waldensians was made who gave their name to these valleys of the Vaudois. In the more accessible regions north and south heresy was exposed to a steady process of persecution, and tended to assume shifting forms. ”

“ Our whole force in Italy is quite strong enough to break the Piedmontese rule if the regular army is engaged and defeated by the victorious Austrian troops, but we are not in a position to effect anything against the army of Piedmont if it is free to act against us. ”

“ We pictured in all parts entertainments and weddings, reckoning that without any expense but wind from our lungs, and the water of our fountain, we should be maintained through Piedmont, Savoy, France, and indeed, all the world over. There was no end to our projected travels, and we immediately directed our course northward, rather for the pleasure of crossing the Alps, than from a supposed necessity of being obliged to stop at any place. ”

“ But the government and the people have a great deal to do to attain to this great requirement. Those begging children which swarm upon this road cry aloud for the means of education and food. The large island of Sardinia, formerly under the Roman sway—well cultivated and richly populated, is at this moment a wilderness, pleasant only to hunters, and artists, who love the picturesque in costume and nature; and Savoy has a poor, half-savage, population! But Piedmont is a young state in an old, long-neglected, country. ”

“ Piedmont in Roman times until 49 B.C. formed a part of Gallia Transpadana, and in Augustus' division of Italy formed with what was later known as Lombardy the 11th region. It formed part of the Lombard kingdom, and it was not till about A.D. 1000 that the house of Savoy (q.v.) arose. ”

“ BEAUMONT, Sir ALBANIS (d. 1810?) , draughtsman, aquatint engraver, and landscape painter, was born in Piedmont, but naturalised in England. Between the years 1787 and 1806 he published a great number of views in the south of France, in the Alps, and in Italy. The short account of him in Füssli's 'Lexicon' (1806) is the best: 'Probably a Piedmontese, and the son of Claudio Francesco, he carried the sounding title of "Architecte pensionné de D. M. le roi de Sardaigne à la suite de S. A. R. le duc de Gloucester." ”

“ It was the intention of the Baron de Willading and his friend to journey by the former of these roads, as has so often been mentioned in these pages, their destination being the capital of Piedmont. The passage of the great St. Bernard, though so long known by its ancient and hospitable convent, the most elevated habitation in Europe, and in these later times so famous for the passage of a conquering army is but a secondary alpine pass, considered in reference to the grandeur of its scenery. ”

“ The village of Abries is situated close to the Alpine ridge, the summit of which marks the boundary between France and Italy. On the other side lie the valleys of Piedmont, in which the French Vaudois were accustomed to take refuge when persecution ravaged their own valleys, passing by the mountain-road we were now about to travel, as far as La Tour, in the valley of the Pelice. ”

“ If we turn to northern Italy, where a mountain barrier might have been expected to segregate the long-headed Mediterranean stock from the broad-headed Alpine stock, we find as a matter of fact that the ethnic type throughout the Po basin is markedly brachycephalic and becomes more pronounced along the northern boundary in the Alps, till it culminates in Piedmont along the frontier of France, where it becomes identical with the broad-headed Savoyards.368 More than this, Provençal French is spoken in the Dora Baltea Valley of Piedmont ”

“ The women of Piedmont are not in general well-favoured; they are undersized and angular in figure, with a weather-beaten complexion, and flat noses. This struck me doubly, coming from Genoa, where female grace and attractiveness are proverbial; the transparent white veil or pezzotto worn by the Genoese is here also poorly replaced by caps tawdrily trimmed with coloured ribbons or artificial flowers. ”

“ They always give you warning, by raising a hideous braying as soon as they perceive the horse at a distance. The mules of Provence are not so mischievous, because they are more used to the sight and society of horses: but those of Piedmont are by far the largest and the strongest I have seen. ”

“ She seems to have breathed the same spirit of ferocity and cunning as that which characterized the conduct of her husband, who commanded the fifteen thousand troops whose gentle entreaties were to win the Vaudois to the orthodoxy of Rome! This army fitly included three regiments of French soldiers, red-handed from the slaughter of the Huguenots; twelve hundred Irish, exiled for their crimes in Ulster; and a number of Piedmontese bandits, attracted by the love of plunder and the promised benedictions of the Church in return for their meritorious labours in extirpating heretics. ”

“ My idea was to make the Piedmont region of the country lying between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers the base of my operations. This embraces the upper portion of the counties of Fauquier and Loudoun. It is a rich, pastoral country, which afforded subsistence for my command, while the Blue Ridge was a safe point to which to retreat if hard pressed by the superior numbers that could be sent against us. It was inhabited by a highly refined and cultivated population, who were thoroughly devoted to the Southern cause. ”

“ The Count Egmont de Hatzfeldt Lieutenant-General, Minister of State, and Secretary at War, comes from one of the best Families in the Empire, This Nobleman is extraordinary civil; his House is open to all Persons of Distinction; he lives very nobly, and both his Lady and himself are very fond of entertaining Foreigners. They were both intrusted to conduct to Piedmont the Princess of Sultzbach first Wife to Charles Prince of Piedmont [140] , and discharged their Employments in such a manner that they had the general Approbation of the Sardinian Court. ”

“ The Piedmontese government stores were at his service as they were in 1860, in order to aid him in clothing and arming his volunteers. These were joined by numerous functionaries and officers of the regular army, who took no pains to conceal their Piedmontese arms and uniforms. Municipalities, at public deliberative meetings, voted subsidies to the Garibaldians, and railway managers provided them with special trains. Whilst so many things that clearly showed the complicity of Piedmont were done, Victor Emmanuel sent protestation after protestation to Paris. ”