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"Look you, Ser Agostino, I could kill you and take joy in it. I could, by God!" His eyes upon me, he drew from his breast a folded paper. "Instead, I bring you liberty. I open your doors for you, and bid you escape. Here, man, take this paper. Present it to the officer at the Fodesta Gate. He will let you pass. And then away with you, out of the territory of Piacenza."
A little blood-letting will cure all his ills for ever." Upon the morrow Galeotto picked thirty of his men, and gave them their orders. They were to depose their black liveries, and clad as countryfolk, but armed as countryfolk would be for a long journey, they were severally to repair afoot to Piacenza, and assemble there upon the morning of Saturday at the time and place he indicated.
His Holiness then resolving to fortify Parma and Piacenza, after many designs and models had been made by various craftsmen, Antonio was sent to those places, and with him Giuliano Leno, the supervisor of those fortifications.
To these last years belong his 'Madonna di San Sisto, so named from its having been painted for the convent of St Sixtus at Piacenza, and his last picture, the 'Transfiguration, with which he was still engaged when death met him unexpectedly. He had a house in Rome, and a villa in the neighbourhood, and on his death left a considerable fortune to his heirs.
Winter coming on, the duke deemed it advisable to retire into quarters, and appointed Piacenza for the forces of Rene, where, having passed the whole of the cold season of 1453, without attempting anything, the duke thought of taking the field, on the approach of spring, and stripping the Venetians of the remainder of their possessions by land, but was informed by the king that he was obliged of necessity to return to France.
This union, it is true, was effected previously to the treaty of Amiens; but it was not so with the states of Parma and Piacenza, Bonaparte having by his sole authority constituted himself the heir of the Grand Duke, recently deceased.
And it is true that the same resolution, transmitted by delegates from Worms, was adopted at Piacenza by a Synod of Italian bishops. But on this occasion the sentence was uttered by an assembly of exclusively German bishops, presided over by a King who was not yet crowned Emperor. If such a sentence was to be effective, Henry should have followed it up by a march to Rome with an adequate army.
Then Charlemagne, taking in both hands his sword Joyeuse, and aiming at the dent, with a laugh swung down and cut the stone itself right through, so that it fell into two pieces, one on either side, and there they lie today near by Piacenza in a field.
Of this ancient sea the Adriatic forms the still unsilted portion. In other words, the great gulf which now stops short at Trieste and Venice once washed the foot of the Alps and the Apennines to the Superga at Turin, covering the sites of Padua, Ferrara, Bologna, Ravenna, Mantua, Cremona, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Pavia, Milan, and Novara.
August 10th, 1759, Ferdinand died; and the same day Carlos became King of Spain. But, instead of giving Naples to Don Philip, Carlos gave it to a junior Son of his own; and left poor Philip to content himself with Parma and Piacenza, as heretofore. Clear against the rights of Austria; Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle is perfectly explicit on that point! Will not Austria vindicate its claim?
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