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On the road to Ivrea, a little behind the village, a small hill closes the valley almost hermetically. The river Dora flows between this hill and the mountain on the right. The river, or rather, the torrent, fills the whole space. The mountain on the left presents very much the same aspect; only, instead of the river, it is the highroad which passes between the hill and the mountain.
Next morning the Austrian sent on a messenger to Melas, with tidings that a large division of the French had indeed passed by the goat-tracks of Albaredo, but that most certainly not one great gun was with them. Buonaparte, meantime, was hurrying forwards with horse, foot, and artillery too, upon Ivrea.
From time to time messengers had arrived from Hannibal and his father to inquire after him, and from them he learned that the Carthaginians had captured the towns of Vercella, Valentinum, and Asta, and the less important towns of Ivrea, Chivasso, Bodenkmag, and Carbantia.
Why did this glacier fail to scoop out a deep and wide basin rivalling in size the lakes of Maggiore or Como, instead of merely giving rise to a few ponds above Ivrea, which may have been due to ice action?
From this vomitory the old glacier poured into the plains of the Po that wonderful accumulation of mud, gravel, boulders, and large erratics, which extend for 15 miles from above Ivrea to below Caluso and which when seen in profile from Turin have the aspect of a chain of hills.
The Duke of Savoy had died in 1637; his widow, Christine of France, daughter of Henry IV., was, so far as her brother's cause in Italy was concerned, but a poor support; but Count d'Harcourt, having succeeded, as head of the army, Cardinal Valette, who died in 1638, had retaken Turin and Casale from the Imperialists in the campaign of 1640; two years later, in the month of June, 1642, the Princes Thomas and Maurice, brothers-in-law of the Duchess Christine, wearied out by the maladdress and haughtiness of the Spaniards, attached themselves definitively to the interests of France, drove out the Spanish garrisons from Nice and Ivrea, in concert with the Duke of Longueville, and retook the fortress of Tortona as well as all Milaness to the south of the Po.
The way, hitherto winding through narrow glens, now swung to a ledge overhanging the last escarpment of the mountains; and far below, the Piedmontese plain unrolled to the southward its interminable blue-green distances mottled with forest. A sight to lift the heart; for on those sunny reaches Ivrea, Novara, Vercelli lay like sea-birds on a summer sea.
It had been agreed with Trescorre that Odo, on his way to Pianura, should visit his grandfather, the old Marquess, whose increasing infirmities had for some years past imprisoned him on his estates, and accordingly about the Ascension he set out in the saddle for Donnaz, attended only by one servant, and having appointed that Cantapresto should meet him with the carriage at Ivrea.
With this I would march to Canossa; there I would espouse Adelheid; then I would proceed to Ivrea, would dethrone the wicked Berengar, would proclaim Adelheid queen in his place, with myself as king consort; then, with the assistance and backing of the imperial German, I would no doubt soon be able to maintain my royal pretensions.
His past seemed to look at him with unrecognising eyes, to bar the door against his knock; and he rode away saddened by that sense of isolation which follows the first encounter with a forgotten self. At Ivrea the sight of Cantapresto and the travelling-carriage roused him as from a waking dream.
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