from Pencillings by the Way by Nathaniel Parker Willis, 1836

At Piacenza, one of those admirable German bands was playing in the public square, while a small corps of picked men were manoeuvred. Even an Italian, I should think, though he knew and felt it was the music of his oppressors, might have been pleased to listen. And pleased they seemed to be - for there were hundreds of dark-haired and well-made men, with faces and forms for heroes, standing and keeping time to the well played instruments, as peacefully as if there were no such thing as liberty, and no menaing in the foreign uniforms crowding them from their own pavement. And there were the women of Piacenza, nodding from the balconies to the white mustachios and padded coats strutting below, and you would never dream Italy thought herself wronged, watching the exchange of courtesies between her dark-eyed daughters and these fair-haired coxcombs.