[ IGS ] [Feb. 



THE AUSTRIANS IN ITALY. 



Mi/an. 



No one can write the name of Milan, as a date, without feelings of min- 

 gled sorrow and indignation for its present condition and disgrace. It is not 

 an iron yoke which it endures — it is a leaden one — oppression, without 

 usefulness or strength. Austrian soldiers literally posted in every street, — 

 one cannot make a step without being reminded both of the foreign rule 

 and the liatred in which it is held. The tyrants will not trust the slaves 

 beyond the length of a bayonet. The sword of justice, or rather of its 

 deceitful spectre, is converted into a hussar's sabre. Her bandage is 

 used only for the execution of the victim, not for the decision of the 



judge. . ■ . . 



The Huns have made another irruption into Italy ; but, this time they 

 have no Attila for their chief. What, indeed, has Francis of Austria in 

 common with any one possessing courage, though the physical ferocity of 

 a barbarian ; talent, though the craft and instinct of an unlettered savage ? 

 " Oh, thou head of the Wrongheads ;" thou worthy representative of 

 the thick-lipped, thick-witted house of Hapsburg ! You who have de- 

 clared war against all enlightenment, all letters, and have expressed your 

 desire to have none but animal slaves, by what title have you sent your 

 locusts over this fair land, to bleach it, not (would it were !) with their 

 bones, but with their pipe-clayed uniforms ? Is it by that of inheritance ? 

 No ; for your fathers could not keep footing within it. Is it by that of 

 community of origin, and manners, and language? No. Is it even by 

 the robber-right of conquest ? No : for your myimidons have been 

 beaten wherever they have dared to shew their flat noses. Lodi, Rivoli, 

 Areola, Marengo, are the triumphs in virtue of which you hold posses- 

 sion of the country ; slaughter, defeat, disgrace have been the attendants 

 of Austrian arms in Italy ; and, as it would seem, for these very causes 

 is she given up to these hordes, who l>ad all the will, but, heretofore, 

 not the power, of banditti. 



It is quite natural that the Austrians should be bitterly hated ; but I 

 am surprised at the loudness and freedom with which that hatred is 

 expressed. There is no man in Italy, of whatever rank or description, 

 who mentions, or hears mentioned, the Austrians Avithout a curse. 

 Tliey have, indeed, a way of pronouncing the very word Tedeschi which 

 bi'eathes hatred. In France, men shun expressing their political opinions : 

 a look, a shrug, a cutting sneer, are all that they will allow themselves 

 before strangers, to express their contempt of their rulers ; but nothing, 

 no spies, no police, no kidnapping, no imprisonment can repress the 

 feelings of the Italians, with reference to the existing government. It 

 commonly first finds vent in expressions of regret for Napoleon. Ndt 

 only was his government in the strongest contrast to that of the present 

 rulers, but in Italy he was always opposed to them as a general, and the 

 mention of his triumphs is that of their humiliation and defeat. At 

 Lodi, for instance, the postillion stopped the carriage to ask us if we 

 would not go round to see the bridge (it is about a mile out of the road), 

 " the bridge," he added, " where Napoleon beat the Austrians !" One of 

 my companions said, " We are Englishmen, we are not Napoleonists ;" to 

 which he replied, " That is the very reason; — all the English go to see 

 the bridge." Nothing, indeed, can be truer, than that our countrymen 

 are fast throwing off their prejudices with regard to Buonaparte. Ten 



