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60 OPPRESSION OF THE CORVEE.
four days in every week, for two months,
without any wages or recompence whatever.
In case of failure, their goods are seized, or
soldiers are quartered on them in proportion
to the extent of their defalcation. The
misery and dissatisfaction expressed in
the famished countenances of these poor
labourers, whom we frequently met returning
of an evening, I shall never forget.
Great numbers of them came from a distance,
and nearly one-third of those who
worked on the road were women, who
helped their husbands or sons.
One day we passed the cottage of a widow,
who appeared in great distress ; on
enquiring the cause, she told us that her
only son had absconded to avoid working
at the corvee, and she was every moment
expecting the officers to come and take
away the little furniture she possessed.
Such are the blessings of the legitimate
and paternal governments which the allied
powers bestowed on Savoy and the
Italian states, in 1814, when they replaced
them under the dominion of their ancient
rulers, without any regard to the feelings,
the wants, or the wishes o fth e inhabitants,
and then, as if in mockery, they styled them-
VALLEY OF THONES. 61
A
selves the liberators of Europe. With as
much truth might the emperors of Fez and
Morocco be styled the liberators of Africa.
Behind the mountains that overhang
the eastern border of the lake of Annecy,
there is a large secluded valley, rarely if
ever visited by tourists. It is called the
Valley of Thones. Like the happy valley
of Basselas, it seems cut off by nature
from all intercourse with the rest of the
world, being surrounded on every side by
steep mountains ; and there is no natural
opening, except a deep chasm or gorge at
the lower part, through which the water
issues, but which was too narrow to allow
of a pathway, till it was widened by the
labour of man. There are other secluded
valleys in Savoy, which are well cultivated
and comparatively populous, and into which
a passage or opening has been made, by
carrying a road over the mountains, or by
widening a natural gorge.
I was extremely desirous of examining
the rocks in the valley of Thones, having
seen their remarkable summits at a distance
j and as the horses were all employed
in the harvest or in the corvee, I was
obliged to content myself with a large ass.
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