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Updated: June 2, 2025
At dinner I said that I should soon be leaving for Genoa, and for my sorrow the marquis gave me a letter of introduction to the notorious Signora Isola-Bella, while the countess gave me a letter to her kinsman the Bishop of Tortona. My arrival at Milan was well-timed; Therese was on the point of going to Palermo, and I just succeeded in seeing her before she left.
When the day broke, the French troops were stationed as follows: The division Gardannes and the division Chamberlhac, forming the extreme advance, were encamped around a little country-place called Petra Bona, at the angle formed by the highroad from Marengo to Tortona, and the Bormida, which crosses the road on its way to the Tanaro.
Her sincerity pleased me, and as I knew too well the power of love I pitied her from my heart. For two hours she told me the history of her unfortunate amour, and as she told it well I began to take a liking for her. We reached Tortona in the evening, and with the intention of sleeping there I told Clairmont to get us a supper to my taste.
In that same month of August, when Galeazzo sent her the last-named letter from his villa at Castelnuovo, near Tortona, the Marchesana wrote to the Mantuan ambassador at Venice, desiring him to send her all the poems and romances concerning French paladins at the court of Charlemagne which he could discover.
These had revolted with the rest of the duchy, to the great annoyance of de Ligny, and a report reached the citizens of Tortona and Voghera that their homes were to be sacked and pillaged. This was of course in those days the usual penalty of rebellion, but the French general was a generous and merciful man who had no such cruel intentions.
The prince's own life was threatened, and he was forced to surrender the fugitive to the people, who tore Tortona limb from limb, and then, after parading the city with the mutilated remains, quietly returned to their allegiance.
He determined to march, not as yet on the north of the River Po, where snow-swollen streams coursed down from the Alps, but rather on the south side, where the Apennines throw off fewer streams and also of smaller volume. From the fortress of Tortona he could make a rush at Piacenza, cross the Po there, and thus gain the Milanese almost without a blow.
Enraged at this insolence, Frederick crossed the Alps, but, too prudent to risk an immediate attack on Milan, strongly fortified and well garrisoned as it was, he sought rather to weaken it through the other towns with which it was in league, and accordingly besieged in turn Rosate, Cairo, and Asti, which all fell into his hands, and ended with the total demolition of the city of Tortona, which he reduced to ashes, afterward even levelling the ground upon which it had stood.
While Don Carlos was thus employed in the conquest of Naples and Sicily, the Imperialists were hard pressed in Lombardy by the united forces of France and Piedmont, commanded by the king of Sardinia and the old mareschal duke de Villars. In the month of January they undertook the siege of Tortona, which they reduced; while the troops of the emperor began to pour in great numbers into the Mantuan.
At dinner I said that I should soon be leaving for Genoa, and for my sorrow the marquis gave me a letter of introduction to the notorious Signora Isola-Bella, while the countess gave me a letter to her kinsman the Bishop of Tortona. My arrival at Milan was well-timed; Therese was on the point of going to Palermo, and I just succeeded in seeing her before she left.
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