Glasgow Courier. — 1859-06-23 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

JUNE 17.—1 have just returned from a trip to Lombardy, and have visited successively Pavia, Lodi, Malegnano, and Milan. I have spoken ! with French touleurowr and village priests, and Italian contadini, and the conclusion I have arrived at is, that whilst in the towns the French are everywhere hailed as deliverers, the peasants and the rural priesthood, who are quite as powerful as they are in Ireland, are to a man in favour of the Austrians. Indeed one thing seems very evident, that the grinding tyranny of the Austriaus, of which we have heard so much, has not been, at all events, exercised against those least able to bear it; and that if undue severity has been exerted to keep in nyder the turbulent population of the towns, the tiller of the soil, the peaceful husbandman, has reoeived every encouragement to his labour and enterprise. The taxation of rural labour and property is actually not so great in Lombardy as it is in Piedmont. The French are everywhere execrated. Long before they crossed the Ticino the priests denounced the invaders from every pulpit, described them in the blackest colours, drew frightful pictures of the special carpi of the French army, depicting them as fiends in human shape, dm., &c. Now, it was in some measure within the power of the French themselves to remove this unfavourable impression' and to prove by their conduct that they were not so black as they had been painted. I regret to say they have not done so. They do not generally commit murder if they are civilly received, it is true; but no woman's honour is safe in any village through which a French detachment happens to be marching. After the affair at Malegnano, the licentiousness of the victorious soldiery knew no bounds. They penetrated into the cellars of the houses, where some part of the female population had taken refuge while the fighting was going on, and frightful excesses were committed there. At ((animas° and Pupal°, near Lodi, the villages were still deserted when I passed there. I went to see thc parish priest, to ask him what had happened, but I could only get out of him, " Ah! gee Francevi ifulitivolati." A few houses had been gutted, but the natives had, by keeping out of the way, rendered any greater crime impossible. At [gala Balla the l'urcos had left marks of their passage. I saw a group of women standing round the door of a cottage, and, moved by curiosity, asked what was the matter. "Questi cuff d'inferno ci hai4 pre*, nostre AIM:" aryl, in fact, I saw several Italian village girls following the regiment at Lodi. They were unwilling to return home after their disgrace, and shame kept them trailing after their ravishers. Their fate is indeed lamentable. At Milan the enthiusiamm is an great as ever; but it is a rather remarkable fact, that both French and Milanese agree in abusing the gallant soldiers of Piedmont, and Victor Emmanuel himself (Inds no favour in their eyes. The annexation with Piedmont is by no means popular, and the only thing that could reconcile them to it would be the selection of Milan for the kingdom of North Italy instead of Turin. The Emperor of the French evidently knows what he is about. No opportunityof politely snubbing the Piedinontese is neglected, and the Milanese are delighted as this. On seeing such petty jealousies and such meanness of spirit, one cannot help regretting that the poor fellows who have already fallen have shed their blood to so little purpose. Here in Turin the French are quite as unpopular as the Piedniontese are in Milan. The insolence and hauteur, the patronising airs which " i no.tri leberatori" are assuming as extremely galling, and, serious as the consequences might prove to themselves, I believe there are many Turinese who will be delighted at the French getting a sound thrashing just to cure them for a time of their insufferable arroganoe.