the Centurione Palace in Genoa, where he had lived during the
preceding winter. Our three divisions having entered Genoa, the
Austrians blockaded it by land, and the English by sea.

I can hardly bring myself to describe the sufferings of the
garrison and the population of Genoa during the two months for which
this siege lasted. Famine, fighting and an epidemic of typhus did
immense damage. The garrison lost ten thousand men out of sixteen
thousand, and there were collected from the streets, every day, seven
or eight hundred of the bodies of the inhabitants, of every age, sex,
and condition, which were taken behind the church of Carignan to an
immense pit filled with quick-lime. The number of victims rose to
more than thirty thousand.

For you to understand just how badly the lack of food was felt by
the inhabitants, I should explain that the ancient rulers of Genoa,
in order to control the populace, had from time immemorial exercised
a monopoly over grain, flour and bread, which was operated by a vast
establishment protected by cannons and guarded by soldiers, so that
when the Doge or the Senate wished to prevent or put down a revolt,
they closed the state ovens and reduced the people to starvation.
Although by this time the constitution of Genoa had been greatly
modified and the aristocracy now had very little influence, there
was not, however a single private bakery, and the old system of
making bread in the public ovens was still in operation. Now, these
public bakeries, which normally provided for a population of a
hundred and twenty thousand souls, were closed for forty-five days
out of the sixty for which the siege lasted. Neither rich nor poor
could buy bread. The little in the way of dried vegetables and rice
which was in the shops had been bought up at the beginning of the