elieve with Niebuhr that, on the
Continent at least, we shall have a return of "the dark ages," and
"despotism enthroned amidst universal ruin."

CHAPTER IX.

ARCO DELLA PACE.

Depressing Effect produced by Sight of Slavery--The Castle of
Milan--Non-intercourse of Italians and Austrians--Arco della
Pace--Contrasted with the Duomo--Evening--Ambrose--Milanese
Inquisition--The Two Symbols.

It was now drawing towards evening; and I must needs see the sun go down
behind the Alps. There are no sights like those which nature has
provided for us. What are embattled cities and aisled cathedrals to the
eternal hills, with their thunder-clouds, and their rising and setting
suns? Making my exit by the northern gate of the city, I soon forgot, in
the presence of the majestic mountains, the narrow streets and clouded
faces amid which I had been wandering. Their peaks seemed to look
serenely down upon the despots and armies at their feet; and at sight of
them, the burden I had carried all day fell off, and my mind mounted at
once to its natural pitch. How crushing must be the endurance of
slavery, if even the sight of it produces such prostration! Day by day
it eats into the soul, weakening its spring, and lowering its tone, till
at last the man becomes incapable of noble thoughts or worthy deeds;
and then we condemn him because he lies down contentedly in his chains,
or breaks them on the heads of his oppressors.

Emerging from the lanes of the city, I found myself on a spacious
esplanade, enclosed on three of its sides by double rows of noble elms,
and bounded on the remaining side by the cafes and wine-shops of the
city, filled with a crowd of loquacious, if not gay, loiterers. In the
middle of the esplanade rose the Castle of Milan,--a gloomy and majestic
pile, of irregular form, but of great strength. It was on the top of
this donjon that the beacon was to be kindled which was to call Lombardy
to arms, in the projected insurrection of 1852. The soft green of the
esplanade was pleasantly dotted by white groupes in the Austrian
uniform, who loitered at the gates, or played games on the sward. But
neither here nor in the cafes, nor anywhere else, did I ever see the
slightest intercourse betwixt the soldiers and the populace. On the
contrary, the two seemed on every occasion to avoid each other, as men,
not only of different nations, but of different eras.

There are two monuments, and only two, in