I Recollect A Day Or Two Ago Being In
Conversation With A Milanese On This Subject And Others Connected With The
Occupation Of Italy By The French.
I happened to mention that the conquest
of Italy by the Republican armies must have been attended with confiscation
Of property; he assured me that no such thing as confiscation of property
took place; that so far from being the losers by the French invasion and
the establishment of their system, they had on the contrary been
considerable gainers, for that the country flourished under their
domination in a manner before unknown, and that one of the greatest
advantages attendant on the occupation was the establishment of an equality
of weight and measures, the decimal division of the coin, the introduction
of an admirable code of laws free'd from all barbarisms - legal, political
and theological - and intelligible to all classes, so that there was no
occasion to cite old authors and go back for three or four hundred years to
hunt out authorities and precedents for what men of sense could determine
at once by following the dictates of their own judgment.
With respect to the statues and pictures belonging to the different
governments of Italy, it must never be forgotten that these governments
made war against the French Revolution either openly or insidiously, and
did their utmost to aid the coalition to crush the infant liberties of
France. Those who did not act openly did so covertly and indirectly; in
short, from their tergiversations and intrigues, they had no claim whatever
on the mercy of the conquerors, who treated them with a great deal of
clemency.
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