642 



.MARIA LOUISA. 



greater, when the new government, thanking them 

 tor their good wishes, desired all strangers to 

 return to their homes. The festivals were soon 

 over; the capital was restored to order; and 

 Maria Louisa was left alone with her subjects. 



The duchy of Parma and Placentia, one of- the 

 most fertile portions of the lovely vale of the Po, 

 bounded on the north by that noble river, on the 

 south by the ridge of the Apennines, on the east 

 by the Enza, and on the west by the Trebbia, two 

 tributaries of the Po, measures about 2200 square j 

 miles, and has now nearly 500,000 inhabitants. 

 Parma and Placentia, formerly two noble repub- | 

 lies, proud of the monuments of valour registered | 

 in the annals of their days of liberty, in 1508 were 

 added to the territory of the church by the warlike 

 Julius II. They were subsequently erected into 

 an independent duchy by Paul III., who invested 

 with them his son Pier Luigi Farnese; and re- 

 mained as a possession of that family until its ex- 

 tinction in 1748. Then, after long wars which 

 cost Europe more blood than the states were worth, 

 they were adjudged to the Infant Don Philip, of 

 the Spanish house of Bourbon. Ferdinand, heir of 

 Don Philip, found himself involved in the catas- 

 trophe of the French invasion ; and in 1802, Parma 

 and Placentia were united to the French republic 

 and empire, under the appellation of the depart- 

 ment of the Taro. 



Maria Louisa, enthroned in prejudice of the 

 legitimate heir, found at her arrival a flourishing 

 state, enriched by the gold lavished upon it during 

 the Spanish dominion, by the comparative peace it 

 enjoyed during the first storms of the French revolu- 

 tion, and by the commerce and industry awakened 

 by the active government of the lieutenants of 

 Napoleon. Parma, its capital, a pleasant and 

 lively town, with a population fluctuating between 

 thirty and forty thousand souls, lies on a smiling 

 plain upon the banks of a small river from which 

 it derives its name. Its frank and hospitable in- 

 habitants have always rivalled the largest capitals 

 in every department of intellectual culture. Under 

 their last Spanish duke, Don Ferdinand, enjoying 

 the blessings of an uninterrupted peace, the uni- 

 versity of Parma had been ranked among the most 

 celebrated of Europe. While the prince, a weak 

 and bigoted spirit, amused himself with singing 

 litanies and ringing bells with the monks, the peo- 

 ple cultivated letters and arts, and Parma was 

 honoured with the flattering appellation of the 

 Athens of Italy.* 



It was then difficult to misunderstand the course 

 to be taken by the newly installed government. 

 Days of repose having finally returned, the happy 

 and liberalizing pursuits of peace were now to be 

 resumed. Maria Louisa was perhaps by taste and 

 inclination addicted to all kinds of refinement, and 

 naturally inclined to declare herself a patroness of 

 learning and art. But, had it been otherwise, the 

 genius of the place would have prevailed over her. 

 A taste for such accomplishments is communicated 

 to all the foreign rulers of Italy at their first arri- 

 val. They seem to breathe it with the air of that 

 delicious country ; with the very perfume of the 

 flowers of its fields. The university prostrated 

 since the days of military despotism, the academy 

 of the fine arts ransacked by the commissaries of 

 the French government, were by the new sove- 

 reign restored in part from the ravages of the recent 



* SPP BotU Stnria d'ltalia Lib. II. 



convulsions. Her comparatively mild government 

 brought many conspicuous personages from the 

 neighbouring states, and her munificent encourage- 

 ment soon called all talents into exercise. 



Turning her attention to more durable monu- 

 ments, she laid the first stone of a magnificent 

 bridge on the Taro, one of the mightiest of tor- 

 rents ; a gigantic work, which cost her seven 

 years of care and several millions of francs; a col- 

 ossal structure of stone, with twenty arches, nearly 

 half a mile in length, wide enough to give passage 

 to four carriages abreast, without contradiction the 

 noblest bridge in Italy, and perhaps in all Europe. 

 This bridge being achieved, she set at liberty some 

 twenty inmates of an ancient female convent, 

 pulled down their cells, and raised upon those 

 ruins a golden theatre, a splendid temple to the 

 arts, rivalling in magnificence the Scala in Milan, 

 and the San Carlo in Naples. She bestowed upon 

 it large sums under the title of dowry ; she called 

 around her every kind of performers ; she was 

 proud of possessing an unequalled orchestra ; and, 

 since the Italians give up every thing for music, 

 she afforded to her subjects music to their hearts' 

 content. 



Her bridges, however, her theatres, her superb 

 villas, her magnificent train, her regiments of grena- 

 diers whom she dressed and undressed with the 

 capricious fondness of a girl for her dolls, her pio- 

 fuse liberality to stage players and fiddlers, before 

 long exhausted her finances. Commerce and in- 

 dustry languished; taxes pressed hard on the labour- 

 ing classes, and the state ran merrily in debt. 

 Money went to Austria under a thousand pretexts, 

 and without pretexts. It was now a tribute of 

 vassallage, now a bargain of alliance. Manufac- 

 tories were closed, as injurious to Austrian indus- 

 try; steamboats were stopped, as encroaching upon 

 Austrian commerce. Maria Louisa paid her ex- 

 penses when a guest at the court of her parents ; 

 she paid the board of her son, whom they held as 

 a prisoner. Her ignorance and submission to the 

 commands of her father account for the misman- 

 agement of the funds of her subjects ; she could, 

 so far, do no better; but the enormous amount 

 of her civil list, her foolish prodigalities, and above 

 all her restless peregrinations, were not less fatal 

 than the insatiable cupidity of Austria. 



No sooner had the swallows of the first spring 

 returned, than she began to feel uneasy within the 

 walls of her palace. It was now the desire of 

 embracing her son at Schonbrunn, now her sister 

 at Munich, now her cousin at Naples. And, 

 wherever she went, there followed a long caravan 

 of dames, pages, and grooms, horses and chaises, 

 dogs, parrots, and monkeys. The monarchs of 

 Europe, made wise by recent events, had adopted 

 an economical style of travelling, in order to enjoy 

 more comfort and freedom, and especially to spare 

 the purse of their subjects. The emperor of 

 Russia was seen travelling in a modest carriage and 

 two, under the name of count of Moscow ; the 

 king of Naples appeared in the noith of Italy with 

 two attendants, as the count of Aversa ; the petty 

 duchess of Parma alone kept up in her journeys all 

 the splendour of the purple. Out of mere kind- 

 ness, her subjects and allies continued to her the 

 title of majesty ; she went through the world in all 

 the pomp of the late empress of France. The 

 newspapers expatiated on her splendid attire and 

 her unbounded liberalities. Her arrival was an 

 event, her progress a triumph. WLile she \\us 



