The Sun.
London, England, 1859-07-15 00:00:00

FRIDAY EVE.N.IN

PIEDMONT

(Prom the Corresp;

indent of the limes.),
The news of TURIN, JULY 11.
known to en she armistice, although probably
noon, dig'
nne persons in Milan on Friday after-
until a not reach the general public of that city
~- Saturday morning, a few hours before I left
-°r Turin. It was the signal for a -myriad of con-
jectures and reports. It certainly took everybody
by surprise, as, I suppose, it will have done in other
countries besides Lombardy.
With an army flushed with victory and eager to
advance, and whose losses in the recent battle were
much more than compensated byreinforcements that
had arrived or were close at hand, with Peschiera
nearly invested, and operations against the. Austrian
possessions on the Adriatic about immediately to
commence, it seemed inconceivable that the ini-
peror of the French should have proposed 'or
accepted a _suspension of arms. The fact being
beyond doubt, a fine field remained for imagination.
What could have influenced Napoleon to this most
unexpected move? I need not trouble you with the
numerous answers supplied to this question, and
which ranged from the probable to the absurd..
Some talked of a change of wind at St. Peters-
burg, others of a Malet conspiracy at Paris. The
Czar thought Austria' had been punished end,
and ought not be driven to the wall. Moray ha
written that, with the Parisians, les absens ont tom-
jowl tort, and that the Imperial presence was
indispensable at the Tuileries. Austria, said others,
beholding a formidable insurrection about to brew le
out in Hungary, had manifested a disposit'non to
yield:- But how was this to be reconciled veitla the
fact that the proposal proceeded from the French
side ? In short, the quidnunes were puzzled in
Milan on Saturday, and they seem no less so on
Monday in Turin. As far as I have as yet been
able to judge, the intelligence has not given satis-
faction. That proneness to suspicion, which is
so conspicuous a feature in the Italian character,
has been roused by the hitherto unexplained event.
Some people begin to apprehend half-measures a
compromise that might still leave a slice of Italy,
under the sway of .Austria, or at least under that
of an Austrian Prinee. Lombardy, to the Mincio,
considers itself safe, and indeed there is little chance
of that district reverting to the house of Hapsburg.
But what about Venetia and the fortresses ? Is
something short of " the Alps to the Adriatic"
programme to be accepted ? Is the reward of
generous Piedmont to be less than the whole of
Northern Italy ? Victor Emmanuel and Count
Cavour went to war, we know, solely for the libera-
tion of the oppressed, for the vindication of Italian
nationality, and are wholly inaccessible to ambi-
tious or selfish motives. They would feel no dis-
appointment though _ Piedmont were to remain
restricted to its present limits, and Lombardy
erected into an independent State. But the Pied-
montese, a greet majority of whom—notwithstand-
ing ali that has been affirmed to the contrary by
parties interested in fostering a delusion—were for
a long time by no means anxious to go to war at
all, have had hopes held out to them of broad pro-
vinces annexed, of power, of grandeur, and wealth
accruing to them from the war into which their
rulers cragged them. They have seen prodigious
expense incurred, loans contracted, taxes aug-
mented, and already there is mourning in the land
for thousands of brave men fallen. They naturally
feel uneasy as soon as the idea is suggested that
there may be a risk of the promised compensation.
Italian imaginations are apt to break into a gallop,
and you may rely upon it that there are plenty of
people here who already admit doubts and sus-
picions of the Emperor Napoleon's good faith
towards Italy, simply on the strength of an armis-
tioe concerning, the causes of which nobody knows
anything.
The reinforcements lately received from France .
by way of Genoa and Mount Cenis amount to 1
40,000 men. They have been coming in fast ; in I
three days of last week 10,000 of them crossed I
the Ticino. Their constant passage renders the 1
railways very irregular. That from Milan to
Brescia was closed to the public for three days of
the past week. Between Milan and Turin the
trains• have continued to run, or I should rather
say, to walk. The managers of this line are among
the gayest and most unscrupulous of the world's
deceivers. They place in their offices tempting
lists showing how four trains a-day run to and fro
hthaerd of the
ossible slight
journ e.y
clerks,
nieetrfiwkvese,e nyhotouhu erosbt. Ntloilnfc at
yph
oietuaaldsm, pi
ses
inquireriofoar
vomfeiranygp
delay—say of half an hour, or at most an hour.
You get into the carriage five minutes before the
appointed time of starting, and you sit for nearly an
hour, perspiring in the intense heat of this broiling
month of July, before the signal to start is given.
At nearly every station between Milan and Novara
some similar delay occurs. At the hour at which
you should be at Turin you may think yourself for-
tunate if you are at the Ticino ; it is quite possible
you may be no further than Magenta, where, if you
were warned that you
were
two, you might amuse yourself by a stroll over the
battle-field. But, as no such information is vouch-
safed to you, and you areinthteo wait an hour or
momentary expec-
tation of a shriek and a start, you dare not stray
to a distance, but keep near the carriage, and kill
time by counting the shot marks on the houses.
The halt is not rendered more agreeable by the
strong odour emitted from the graves of the brave
that lie buried thickly around;
and you are made
hotter than ever by your frantic efforts to keep off
the horrid flies that have sprung in clouds from the
corrupt and ill-interred mass. The smell on Satur-
day evening at the Magenta station was less, how-
ever, than I had expected from the accounts of it
that had been given to me a few days before. In a
rather extensive hollow hard by the station are a
number of large graves, and the surface earth of
some of these looked fresh, so that I suspect they
have been opened and lime thrown in. Something
was certainly necessary
to be done to amend the
slovenly manner in which the first burying was
effected. Besides. troops, war material continues to
arrive, chiefly artillery. A number of very large
guns and mortars were at Milan three days ago,
and we met others on the road, besides carriages,
limbers, shot-carts, and all the bulky equipage of a
powerful field and siege force. A monster train was
halted on a rail parallel to that on which we waited
for nearly two hours at the Ticino. It was crowded
with French soldiers, chiefly of the 71st Regiment,
and a merrier set of mortals it would be hard to
find. They had come up from Genoa, and were on
their way to the front. Had they been told they
were to be so long halted they might have made
their coffee—a beverage of which the French sol-
dier seems never to have enough. Officers have
told me that, when they have time and 'opportu-
nity, they drank it five times a-day. They make it
weak, and soak their biscuit in it ; and, in fact, this
mess often constitutes their chief nourishment.
With or without it, however, their spirits seem
never to flag. Those at the Ticino were in their
usual state of deshabille when travelling by train
—that is to say, in shirts and trousers. In the rail-
way the French soldiers' favourite station is on the
top of the carriage. No matter how hot the sun,
there they sit and chatter, and seem delighted at
having got above everything. Doubtless the in-
terior of the carriage is not the most agreeable
place in warm weather, crowded as it is with sol-
diers and lumbered with their knapsacks ; so a de-
tachment relieves the others by going aloft. This
elevated perch is not unattended with danger on
lines where there are tunnels, and three or four
Voltigeurs ef the Guards had their heads knocked
off in that way not very long ago. AccOrdingly,
some officers try to prevent their men from riding
outside, but it requires them to be sharp to do this.
A captain of the Grenadiers of the Guard lately
told me that he gave strict orders to his soldiers not
to get on the carriages, and saw them all lodged
within before he himself took his seat ; but, happen-
ing to put his head out of window when the train
was in full career, he saw them swarming out of
the windows, and settling on the roof. Before the
train reached its destination they all swarmed in
again, and were ready to meet their commander's
eye, as demure as if they were incapable of infringing
his order. They enliven the long halts of the dawd-
liug Italian railways by a great deal of fun, and by
pracl ical jokes innumerable. A facetious trumpeter
tries to stimulate the apathetic locomotive by sound•
ing the march, or even the charge, and tantaliSes
his comrades by modulating the agreeable notes
which habitually summon them to la souse. a
couple of active fellows set to work at la Polichi-
nelle, the soldier's favourite dance, in which the
movements of flat wooden figures pulled by strings
for the amusement of children are imitated. with
ludic:ous fidelity. The system that has been intro-
duced of conveying troops by rail, while it is likely
to shorten wars, cannot, I think, but contribute to
render the military profession more popular than
ever in France. The soldier's greatest curse used to
be the necessity and fatigue of long marches ; the
day of battle is his pleasure and festival. Steam
conveys him almost under fire. He is delighted at
the povelty of riding in his carriage, where he has
nothing to do but to smoke, gossip, and sleep. Ex-
haustion and sore feet are no longer to be dreaded,
although it must be owned that, when he is cell-