JOURNAL KEPT IN ITAL Y. ROAD FROM PARIS TO TURIN. TURIN. May 17. 1844. TURIN is a bright and cheerful city: it has been called formal; but no one would think it so while gazing down a long street studded with partycoloured shops and disclosing an Alp in the background. Here are two palaces, old and new: the former now holds out the attraction of a picturegallery, and contains perhaps a score of first-rate paintings. We were best pleased with a "Saul at Tarsus," by Ribera, though by no means the most costly picture here. The modern palace has a spacious front in the B piazza; at one angle of it rises the cathedral, whose dome is partly sacrificed to a group of inferior buildings. We reached the grand stairhead a few minutes before the king and queen passed out on their way to vespers, escorted by a troop of ladies, officers, and pages in waiting. Their majestics appeared to be good-natured souls, though the quick marching step indicated pretty plainly that nobody had dined. Following the royal cortége, we found the interior of the cathedral brilliantly illuminated. It has no lack of adornments, but, for the motherchurch in a capital city, I thought there seemed a lack of room. Next to the Alps, the noblest feature here is "wandering Po," whose acquaintance we have made for the first time. I shall, however, leave him to his mazes now, and retrace our own route from Paris hither. Coming by Fontainebleau, Saulieu, Châlons and the Savoy, it is a week's journey without hurrying. The drive through Burgundy presented a succession of budding vineyards, with here and there an old ruined keep. In Sens we halted half an hour to look at its ancient cathedral: here among other rarities we were shown, as specially interesting to English folk, a cope and chasuble worn by that meek churchman Thomas à Becket. Châlons sur Saône is a fine town, with a fine inn. In Lyons we saw a Trades-Union in procession, threading a narrow street and chanting the Marscillaise; but the demonstration seemed to lack fervour, and was perhaps merely an effort to disperse their ennui. What a dingy broken-backed city is Lyons! yet here they make the beautiful silks for our dames' bravery. Every thing bright or precious comes out of some pit of misery, some mine of darkness. A few miles on this side of the frontier we slept at les Echelles; once a wretched halting-place, but now the inn is endurable. It was pitch-dark when we got in, but next morning our eyes opened on a pretty panorama, the more striking from being limited in extent. A green glen with gentle eminences fills the foreground; farther back are precipices of the bare rock sprinkled with dark firs: the skyline is formed by ridges of the mountain white with snow. On one steep summit is perched the mother convent of the Chartreuse. A fine gallery cut through the rock leads out of the Echelles valley. On the 15th we turned the last vale of the Savoy on this route. From the bed of its torrent rose a massive pinnacled fortress, whose name I forget: it is the key of the whole pass, and is unassailably strong. At present its ramparts and artillery may serve to overawe the saucy goats. Leaving the hamlet of Lanz le Bourg, the sloping ascent of Mont Cenis lay before us: I walked up the ten miles to its summit, and our Scotch maid, with the independence natural to her race, did the same for half way. Every turn and wind of the road varied the prospect below, and I was pleased with watching the gradual changes in the botanical aspect of the hill. We had left violets and a clustering flora in the valley these soon dwindled to bluebells and crocuses, and nothing remained at last save a few lichens. The temperature of this Alp was delicious after the scorching heat of the glen. On its summit we found a good plain inn, with double windows, large wood fires, and a freezing lake in front. The latter furnished some capital yellow trouts for supper, and we slept soundly amid snow-hills and blocks of ice. Next morning, at break of day, came the descent, not a very pleasant operation. For eight miles the road twisted and dropped like the coils of a snake |