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Updated: September 3, 2024
It had an anxious, harassed look, like a speculator concluding a keen bargain; the very dwelling-houses smelt of trade, having shops in the lower stories; in the outskirts, where there are cottages in other cities, there were mills here; the trees, which some deluded dreamer had planted on the flat pavements, had all grown up into abrupt Lombardy poplars, knowing their best policy was to keep out of the way; the boys, playing marbles under them, played sharply "for keeps;" the bony old dray-horses, plodding through the dusty crowds, had speculative eyes, that measured their oats at night with a "you-don't-cheat-me" look.
"'My dear brother Ferdinand, Archduke of Milan, considering he is only Governor of Lombardy, is not without industry; and I am told, when out of the glimpse of his dragon the holy Beatrice, his Archduchess, sells his corn in the time of war to my enemies, as he does to my friends in the time of peace. So he loses nothing by his speculations!
The Emperor of Austria, Francis Joseph, had assumed command of the army when the great battle of Solferino was fought amidst the wondrous beauty of Italian scenery in an Italian summer. It was June 24th, and the peasant reaped the harvest of Lombardy, wondering if he should reap for the conqueror the next day.
He confirmed Pepin's gift, and even, though he hardly kept his promise, enlarged it to include the whole of Italy, from Lombardy to the frontier of Naples, while he himself became king of Lombardy, and won the iron crown. And so by French armies not for the last time was the Pope propt up on his ill-gotten throne.
It was at first proposed to employ for this purpose poles supporting sheaves of straw connected with the ground by the same material; but the experiment was afterwards tried in Lombardy on a large scale, with more perfect electrical conductors, consisting of poles secured to the top of tall trees and provided with a pointed wire entering the ground and reaching above the top of the pole.
The Alps, over which Hannibal stormed, over which the Goths poured down on the fertile plains of Lombardy, through whose passes mediaeval emperors led their forces, over whose summits Napoleon brought his men, through whose bowels this generation has burrowed its tunnels, stand the same, and smile the same amid their snows, at the transient creatures that have crawled across them.
It was thus determined that the count should pass into Lombardy; and having taken Uzzano, and raised bastions about Lucca to restrain in her inhabitants, placed the management of the siege in the hands of the commissaries, crossed the Apennines, and proceeded to Reggio, when the Venetians, alarmed at his progress, and in order to discover his intentions, insisted upon his immediately crossing the Po, and joining the other forces.
Every one who has been to Europe will recall the long lines of Lombardy poplars that make the fair vision of many French roads linger long in the memory, and I can never forget the magnificent avenue of cryptomerias gigantic in size, straight as ship masts, fair as the cedars of Lebanon that line the road leading to the great Shogun Iyeyasu's tomb in Nikko.
To the Sardinian monarchy would have been assigned the spoils taken from Austria, Venice and Lombardy. The change in his political plans was the consequence of the change in his military plan, though either change may be pronounced the cause or the effect, according to the point from which the observer views the entire series of transactions.
Then came a period of fierce civil wars, when its history merged in that of the conquerors of Lombardy. Taken and lost by the French so late as 1796, it was stormed and pillaged by Napoleon, but once more came into the possession of Austria, until it finally found refuge in the bosom of United Italy.
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