But
the Austrian government, knowing itself to be unpopular in Italy and
trembling for the safety of her dominions, being always fearful that the
Piedmontese Government might one day be induced to favour an
insurrectionary or national movement in the north of Italy, determined,
finding that it could not keep the fortress for itself, which it strove
hard to do under divers pretexts, to render it of as little use as they
possibly could do to the King of Sardinia; so they blew up the
fortifications and carried off the cannon, leaving the King without a
single fortified place in the whole of his Italian dominions to defend
himself, in case of attack, against an Austrian invasion.
On the morning of the 15th August we passed thro' Tortona, now no longer a
fortress of consequence. All this country may be considered as classic
ground, immortalized by the campaigns of Napoleon, when commander in chief
of the army of the French Republic in Italy, a far greater and more
illustrious _role_ than when he assumed the Imperial bauble and
condescended to mix with the vulgar herd of Kings.
We arrived at Voghera to breakfast and at Casteggio at night.
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