Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/468

484 take my leave of Turin, because I have derived great pleasure from this member of the state—Grizzinis, as it is called. It is a kind of bread, long and slender, like willow-twigs, which is consumed in great quantities all over Piedmont. Although this extremely delicate bread consists, it is asserted, of nothing but the common dough of wheaten bread, of flour and water, which is drawn out into yard-long lengths, yet the making of it succeeds nowhere but in Piedmont. It has been attempted in all quarters, but in vain. Napoleon the Great, who took great delight in this bread, had bakers fetched from Piedmont to Paris, flour, and also water, but the self-willed grizzinis, would not bow itself to the ruler of France and Italy, and he was obliged to give up the attempt. It stays in Piedmont, and will not succeed anywhere else. People say that it exists in the air. In the mean time I will take some grizzinis with me to Sweden.

The 23d.—A bright day at last, and as bright, as beautiful, as sunny, as if there were not a cloud to be found in the world!

In the afternoon, I ascended the Capuchin hill, on the other side of the Po, in company with M. Meille, and my two young countrymen. The view from the top is of the most beautiful description. In the north the great Alpine ridge, with Monte Viso as the principal figure, and further off, Monte Rosa, Mont Blanc, and Simplon, which glance forth with snow-white crowns, a guard of ice-giants around the verdant, fertile plains of Piedmont, where the silk is spun and the orange ripens. Midway between north and west, the romantic and historically-celebrated valley of