Vichy is a place of great antiquity; and although its early history is obscure, its chronicle may be pretty distinctly traced from the 13th century downwards. Antiquaries might perhaps compile it to a much remoter date, by the aid of the numerous coins, statuettes, pots, pillars, and baths, that have been and still are dug up there. That it was greatly frequented by the Romans there seems to be no doubt, but the buildings they constructed were destroyed by the northern barbarians. Towards the end of the 14th century the town was so considerable as to be divided into four quarters, one of which was known as that of the Jews, and was situated between modern Vichy and the pretty village of Cusset, said to derive its name from the Celtic word cuzey, hidden-the origin, perhaps, of the English cosy. In the frequentlyrecurring intestine wars of the 15th and 16th centuries, Vichy had its share of disaster and suffering. It was a strong place in 1440, when it was besieged by Charles VII. It opened its gates at the first summons, and the inhabitants sent their magistrates to the king to entreat that they might not be massacred or plundered-a boon, says an historian of the time, which that sovereign graciously conceded to them, annexing to it, however, the condition that the provisions in the town should be divided amongst his soldiers, and that eight hundred of them should remain there in garrison; which, says the same writer, came to pretty much the same thing." The unlucky convent of the Célestins was repeatedly pillaged, and occasionally destroyed. In 1576 the Huguenots played havoc with it, but gifts from pious persons and succours from Henry III. of France raised it again from its ruins. It was most unluckily situated, for it was a prominent point for both attack and defence; but, on the other hand, it enjoyed great favour with many powerful persons, and its privileges were numerous. By successive exemptions, it came at last to pay no taxes at all, and farmers who brought their corn to be ground at the convent mill were exempted from tolls. Henry IV. and Louis XIV. in turn confirmed its privileges, but

under Louis XV., only six monks remaining, it was suppressed, and the Bishop of Clermont took possession of its estates, paying an annuity to each of the six survivors, the last of whom died at Vichy in 1802. During the Revolution the convent was demolished, and portions of its materials may still be traced in the walls of some of the Vichy hotels.

Modern Vichy is divided into two parts -Vichy the Town, and Vichy the Baths. The former is the ancient portion; its streets are narrow, steep, and ill-paved. The old houses, however, are falling into decay, and being replaced by others of a better sort. The apartments are still shown which were inhabited by Madame de Sévigné, who took the waters there in 1676, and whose letters contain a glowing description of the attractions of the place. The eloquent Fléchier was there about the same time, and he too has left in his works a panegyric of the surrounding scenery and of the salubrity of the site. The country is certainly pretty, but persons desirous of strictly at tending to medical orders have little time for long excursions. Waterdrinking twice a-day, a bath, and meals at ten and five, leave only the evening for rambling. The duration of the cure ranges generally between twenty and forty days, and persons who take the waters for the longer period are often ordered to suspend drinking them for a few days in the middle of the time. That interval may be well employed in a visit to the mountains of Auvergne. Nearer at hand, however, are many pretty excursions, some of which may be made in three or four hours, and most of them in half a day-on foot, in carriages, or on donkeys, which animals are in great request at Vichy. The Green Mountain and the Allée des Dames are close at hand, the Slate Quarry and the Goat's Leap, and the Château of Randan (formerly the property of Madame Adelaide, and bequeathed by her to the Duke of Montpensier, but now belonging to the Duke of Galiera) are at a greater distance. The park of Randan is remarkably beautiful. The Château d'Effiat is about twelve miles from Vichy. It derives its name from Marshal d'Ef

fiat, the ambassador who negotiated the marriage of Henrietta of France with Charles I. of England, and the father of the unfortunate Cinq-Mars, Richelieu's victim. Subsequently it belonged for a time to the famous Law, and was sold by his creditors when his speculative bubble burst.

Vichy les Bains, the new town, is open and pleasant, with gardens in front of its houses, which are chiefly hotels and boarding-houses. It was lately a very cheap watering-place, but prices are rising as it annually becomes more frequented. The virtues of its waters and the facility of access from Paris suffice to procure it numerous visitors; but a moderate outlay of money might render it much more attractive. The pumproom, or Etablissement, is a tolerably handsome building; the bathing accommodation is excellent, and, in a large rotunda, balls, concerts, and theatrical performances (the latter of a very poor description), are given during the season. Vichy, however, is upon the whole dull, and the life monotonous. The introduction of good bands, to play in the open air, as at the German watering-places, would greatly enliven it. In front of the pump-room is a large garden, called the Park, where people sit in the day, and promenade of an evening, under the shadow of some rather meagre lime-trees. One of the characteristics of the place is the number of military men who resort to it, the waters being found efficacious in various diseases that result from the exposure and hardships of campaigning. The French Government has established there a commodious and well-organised military hospital, where ninety officers and sixty soldiers are accommodated, every officer having a room to himself. Africa sends numerous patients to this establishment, where, by the sole agency of the waters, judiciously applied by an experienced military physician, many remarkable cures have been effected in cases that appeared all but hopeless.

If Vichy be not a particularly lively or amusing place of sojourn, persons who are really ill find compensation in the tonic effects of the waters, and in the symptoms of improved

health which, in the majority of cases, quickly follow upon their use. These waters are what the French doctors call remontantes, an expressive word which well describes their effects, for they raise the spirits, sharpen the appetite, and seem to give a general fillip to the system. On the principle of prevention being better than cure, gentlemen who have been going through an extensive course of dining - out, accompanied by a liberal allowance of port and burgundy, and topping off occasionally with a hot supper and corrective tumblers of toddy, might employ three weeks of summer advantageously at Vichy, and perhaps avert an attack of gout by restricting their diet for that period to its wholesome tables d'hôte, and their beverage to the sparkling spring of the Célestins. By that time, however, they would doubtless cry Enough! and rejoice in a change from the tranquil little bathing-place on the banks of the Allier and the Sichon to the life and bustle of Paris ;-Paris, pleasant even in August, when at the emptiest and dullest; when the court is absent, and the cream of its population scattered abroad; when the theatres are at their very worst, the cafés steaming hot; when Mabille, always wicked, is almost wearisome; and the Pré Catalan, more decorous, but also duller, shows scarcely a sprinkling of visitors-its Spanish and Chinese dancers capering to empty benches in their pretty flower-embowered theatres. Never, probably, was the desertion from the boulevards more general than at the close of the sultry summer of 1857. The necessity of bracing the fibre by sea or mountain air was so universally felt by the Parisians, that the great artery of the capital was abandoned to the toiling multitude, to stray foreigners or birds of passage, and to those indefatigable bulls and bears that devour each other, all the year round, at the entrance to the opera-passages. The great chief of the State-he who may say, as truly as the fourteenth Louis, l'Etat c'est moi, was playing at soldiers on the chalky flats of Chalons; his ministers were scattered abroad, as were half the official people of Paris; persons whose occu

pations forbade long absences, had settled themselves in the environs, and slunk in and out of town as though ashamed to be seen there; even foreigners hurried through as if impelled by a foolish adherence to fashion to ignore the fact that Paris, at its dullest, is still the pleasantest place in which a stranger can pass a fortnight; here and there one met an adventurous Briton, a stray Spanish grandee or Moldavian boyard; but the Café de Paris is no more, and the old rendezvous of foreigners, who held their after-dinner meeting in its front, is now at an end.

From London to Turin is now as easy a journey as was, twenty years ago, that from London to Paris. The expense is of course greater, but the time employed is scarcely more than was required, in the days of stagecoaches and diligences, to get from Piccadilly to the Boulevards. And this notwithstanding many changes of vehicle, some of which will soon be got rid of. After steaming nearly through France, one takes to the water along a very crooked and narrow canal, where the boat is apt to get aground, and is preserved from so doing only by the desperate exertions of squads of men and boys, who run along the banks, holding ropes attached to the small steamer, which they twist round pegs sunk in the ground, and, hauling upon them, keep her in the deepest water, and get her round the sharp bends. The tugging and concomitant shouting are of course considerable, and the progress slow; but the passengers -if, as is the best plan, they have left Paris by the mail train the night before-are generally too busy discussing a bad breakfast in the wretched cabin, to heed much that goes on above and around them. Disentangled from the windings of the canal, the boat enters the picturesque little lake of Bourget, and quickly steams across it. All this water-passage will soon be done away with by a railway now in course of construction. On landing, you proceed by rail to St Jean de Maurienne; then come a dozen hours' diligence across the Mont Cenis, and finally, a short railway takes you from Susa to Turin.

This city does not very strongly impress new-comers by its aspect. If you enter it from Milan or Genoa, you are chiefly struck by its modern appearance. Of ancient origin, it is of recent and rapid growth. It was not until towards the latter half of the sixteenth century that it became the capital of Piedmont, and at the close of that century it had not 12,000 inhabitants. Bertolotti remarks that it resembles a city built in the sixteenth century, increased and embellished in the seventeenth, renewed and greatly enlarged in the eighteenth. I may add that it has nearly doubled in size in the nineteenth, at least in population, for the census of 1799 give little more than 80,000 inhabitants. Under Victor Emanuel I., Charles Felix, and the late King Charles Albert, vast additions of handsome squares and streets were made to Turin. With the exception of a few old streets, narrow and irregular, composed of houses of various heights, with wooden balconies and close courts,-relics of Turin as it was in A. D. 1500-and of the Via di Po, which may be termed the Bond Street of Turin, and which permits itself a slight obliquity, all the streets in the chief city of Sardinia are parallel, or at right angles to each other, so that a map of the town much resembles a chess-board. In this respect Turin is like Mannheim on the Rhine. The houses are solidly constructed, but much too airy for a climate like this, where at least five months of the year are cold and wet. The wood of the internal fittings is frequently ill-seasoned; it quickly warps, and through doors and windows countless zephyrs whistle and flutter, bearing colds and rheumatism on their wings. And even in many of the best and newest houses an abominable practice still prevails of having on every landing-place a large doorway opening on an interior balcony, and closed, not by solid pannels, or even by glass, but simply by a gate of iron bars. Add to this that the street doors are open all day, and you will easily imagine that it is not easy to warm such houses by the wood fires which alone are obtainable in Turin, and that recourse must be had to stoves, and

to portable receptacles for hot embers. The mode of dwelling is similar to that in Paris; people live upon floors, or upon half or a third of a floor, some of the houses being very large. This involves the necessity of a porter, which all the houses of a decent class possess; but between the Parisian concierge and the Piedmontese portinajo the difference is indeed wide. The former is a type immortalised by innumerable novelists and caricaturists-his vices are many, his virtues few; he is greedy, venal, generally lazy, often insolent, a spy and a scandal-monger, but he is usually intelligent and quick-witted. His brother in Turin may be more virtuous, but he is also a vast deal stupider; and as he rarely speaks or comprehends anything but an abominable dialect, compounded of Italian and Provençal, with a mixture of words stolen from the French or derived from Spanish and various other tongues, he is of little resource to the foreigner. His deficiency in this respect is not to be wondered at, since in Piedmont even the highest classes are not ashamed to converse habitually in 'this inharmonious patois. Indeed, Italian is very little known in this country, and Piedmontese and bad French are the usual mediums of conversation.

The stranger in Turin is generally struck by its quietness, which, considering its size, is certainly remarkable. Its inhabitants display little of that vivacity for which southerns are generally noted. They are rather phlegmatic, and neither boisterous nor loquacious. An equal number of Frenchmen would make far more noise. Then, unlike Milan, where private carriages are said to be more numerous in proportion to its population than at Paris, the traffic of vehicles is not great; and as most of the principal streets are provided with strips of flags to receive the wheels, and as the pace is usually anything but rapid, little noise is occasioned. From the position of the principal hotels, the theatres, and the best shops, and following the crowd, Po Street and Castle Square (into which it debouches) are the beat strangers are most likely to

take, and from them they first derive their impression of the town. Both street and square are lined with massive arcades, of a plain and heavy style of architecture, and under these-sotto i portici-is the favourite promenade of the Turinese. Ladies go there to shop, and men to stroll. The effect of this part of the town would be decidedly handsome, if the porticoes were kept unencumbered. But, ground being valuable there, the larger half of these have been suffered to be filled up with mean wooden buildings, serving as shops, and occupied by milliners, pipe-makers, engravers, and small tradesmen of different descriptions. This greatly darkens the arcades, which are closed, to a person viewing them from the centre of the square, by the rear of these shabby huts. In like manner, in the Via di Po, flower and fruit sellers, dealers in old books and engravings, in matches, nails, provisions, and small wares of all kinds, are allowed to establish their stalls on the exterior edge of the flags, under the curve of the arches, and even on both sides within, encroaching on the footway. The arcades being thus considerably blocked up, persons driving down the street are hardly aware of the full extent of the movement on either side of them. Except in the morning, when comparatively few people are abroad, and most of them are proceeding rapidly to business, nobody seems to walk for exercise in Turin. It is one eternal saunter under the porticoes, which are apparently considered to be, like a Spaniard's cloak, good to exclude cold in winter and heat in summer. On Sundays and holidays, and in fine weather, the population in some degree emancipates itself from their shelter, and finds its way into the open streets, into the squares, some of which are large and handsome, and also to the exterior boulevard, or alley planted with trees, which extends nearly all round Turin, except on the side where it is bordered by the Po.

The police and municipal superintendence of Turin are, as you will perhaps have already inferred, extremely deficient. Certainly in no

other capital would the principal streets and squares (for the same system is tolerated in the very handsome Piazza di San Carlo, in the centre of which stands Marochetti's celebrated equestrian statue of Emanuel Philibert) be suffered to be defaced by booths and apple-stalls, and crowded with rubbishing old books and trays of stale pamphlets. Then the bill-sticking is unlimited; columns, gateways, houses, and even public buildings, are pasted over with play-bills, advertisements of all kinds, sheets of anouncements (small newspapers) published by house-agents and others, and with countless dirty little manuscripts, wafered to the wall by persons who have lodgings to let. As it seems nobody's business to tear these down, they accumulate, and often remain long after they have become illegible from damp and dirt. Then the streets, although generally well paved, are very ill kept, and snow and mud are but rarely and imperfectly removed. And the beggars, although not in such crowds as at Madrid, are numerous, and as very few porters consider it their duty to keep them out of the houses, and many of the porters' lodges are not at the entrance at all, but at the bottom of a court, or in some out-ofthe-way place, mendicants, monks, match-sellers, and vagabonds, and impostors of all kinds, march boldly up the stairs, and ring at the doors of the apartments. In all these respects, then, Turin is infinitely inferior to Milan, which is a clean, well-kept, and well-ordered city.

The lover of antiquities will find little to gratify him in the Piedmontese capital, concerning whose buildings and externals, however, I think I have said enough, since, as regards all such things, is there not much written in the Red Book of Murray ? I shall dwell no more upon them, neither do they possess any striking attraction. The chief interest of this capital is moral, and not material, and is due to its being that of the only Italian country which has as yet succeeded in obtaining and retaining a constitutional government. England cannot but watch with interest the progress and fate of these five millions of people, who, sur

rounded by despotisms, can justly boast of real freedom. Lord Palmerston has held up Piedmont as a shining example of the success of free institutions, and, on a broad view of the case, it cannot be said that he was in the wrong. The Piedmontese have, as I believe, a strong instinctive love of liberty, and their public men possess, in a remarkable degree, the virtues of honesty, patriotism, and disinterestedness. The warfare of political parties is usually carried on with a fairness, an openness, and an abstinence from intrigue, most creditable to all concerned. After such high praise as this, I may be permitted to say that the ignorance of a vast proportion of the Piedmontese is very great, that education is extremely behind-hand in this country, and that I think the nation is deficient in that intelligence and vigour of thought which would enable it to improve on the condition it has attained. We must bear in mind, however, that ten years only have elapsed since its emancipation, and that, during the whole of that time, the Constitutionalists have had to resist the persevering efforts of a numerous and powerful party, including nearly the whole of the enormous body of churchmen, which has been continually striving to impel the country on a backward path. In this it would not improbably have succeeded, but for the honesty of the King, and the talents, firmness, exertions, and true patriotism of a few distinguished men. At the head of these-and, it must be added, far ahead of any of them in ability— stands the present prime-minister, Count Camillo Cavour, who would rank in any country as a true statesman, and who is of inestimable value to Piedmont. An aristocrat by birth and connection, he has braved the prejudices of his class to place himself at the head of the liberal movement in his country, to guide and to control it. A man of extraordinary energy and application, he has sacrificed all pleasures to the severest labour, or rather he has made of labour the sole pleasure of his life. He has been well described by Antonio Gallenga as "the massy-headed, hundred-handed, sleepless, indefati