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This was the second year of the scarcity; in the preceding one,

the provisions, remaining from past years, had supplied in some

measure the deficiency, and we find the population neither

altogether satisfied, nor yet starved; but certainly unprovided

for in the year 1628, the period of our story. Now this harvest,

so anxiously desired, was still more deficient than that of the

past year, partly from the character of the season itself (and

that not only in the Milanese but also in the surrounding

country), and partly from the instrumentality of men. The havoc

of the war, of which we have before made mention, had so

devastated the state, that a greater number of farms than

ordinary remained uncultivated and deserted by the peasants, who,

instead of providing, by their labour, bread for their families,

were obliged to beg it from door to door.