Are you referring to the Barbets?

If you are, they were hardly 'Piedmontese nationalists.'

The Barbets were a type of local militia in the Piedmontese frontier districts who were expert mountaineers, and during peacetime were bandits and smugglers. They were audacious, and treated both foreigners and their fellow countrymen with abject cruelty. By 1796 they were shifting their allegiance to Austria (so the idea that they might be 'Piedmontese nationalists' is fantasy), and two of their leading chiefs, Feronne and Contino, were in Austria's pay. By 1805 the were completely destroyed.

After Piedmont became part of France in 1802, a Piedmontese Expeditionary Battalion was formed, became the Tirailleurs du Po, a crack light infantry unit which was usually brigaded with the equally expert Tirailleurs Corse. In 1811 it was formed, along with the Swiss Bataillon Valaison, into the reactivated 11th Legere.