Chapter X: Part 10

The position of the Republic was a difficult one. Prudence required the strictest neutrality as to the affairs of other nations; but the mere fact that every one recognised this as Venice’s only possible position exposed her to perfidious and secret attacks of all sorts. France maintained a vast number of secret agents to propagate revolutionary doctrines in the Venetian territory, and at the same time lost no opportunity of trying to pick a quarrel with the Republic, by insulting her flag. On the twenty-ninth of November 1792, the captain of a French man-of-war, bearing a Spanish name, the _Buenos Ayres_, asked permission to land with eight men on the Venetian shore, but refused to submit to the regulations of the Health Office. His request was refused. Thereupon he proceeded to abuse the Venetian government from the deck of his ship. He wound up by declaring that there was no such thing existing as a Sovereign Government, that all men were equal, and that he was a magistrate, as good as any senator. He chose to land, and he would land if he chose. A Venetian galley hindered him

[Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 219._]

from doing so, but as he made off he cried out: ‘You will change your minds in a year!’

Poor France! She herself was to learn a century later that all men are equal--in the eyes of German Jews.

At that time Austria allied herself with Piedmont to oppose the French invasion which was imminent, and the Venetian Envoy at the court of Turin continually advised his government to join this league, which alone could save the Republic and the other Italian powers.

The Committee of the Savi who had absorbed the government of Venice simply by saving trouble to all the other officials, allowed the Senate to

[Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 195._]

discuss this proposition, probably because they understood its vast importance. But the Senate declared for strict neutrality, and the Savi felt that after this they were free to do as they pleased, and from that time they decided according to their own judgment as to the question of showing any despatch to the Councils or of suppressing it in order to avoid public discussions.

Nevertheless, they felt the danger of the moment enough to recall the Venetian vessels stationed at Malta and Corfu, in order to defend the approaches to Venice, a measure which displeased France on the ground that it was a preparation for hostilities. Thus the success of the French army in Savoy obliged the Savi to call in the Senate again, to discuss the public safety. The ‘fathers of their country’ were at that time mostly in their country places, thoroughly enjoying themselves; but they too must have felt that there was danger in the air, for they answered the summons of Francesco Pesaro, the presiding Savio for the week. A lively discussion took place, but once more neutrality was voted by a strong majority, and the government of the Savi now entered upon a course of half measures more dangerous in reality than any one mistake could have been. Permission was granted to the Imperial troops to transport provisions from Trieste to Goro, and with a last revival of the business spirit the Republic violated the neutrality she had voted by selling corn and oats to the Austrians. At this the Venetian Ambassador withdrew to London for safety, leaving his secretary in charge.

An incident now occurred in Venice

[Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 203._]

which was calculated to bring matters to a crisis.

The French Ambassador, who had quitted Venice, had left in charge of the Embassy a certain Monsieur Henin, who had taken as his private secretary a priest called Alessandri. On the twenty-ninth of December 1792 this priest was sent for in haste by the Superior of the bare-footed Carmelites of the monastery of San Geremia, close to the palace occupied by the French Embassy. He was introduced with some mystery, but with no loss of time, and was conducted to the Superior’s room, where he was warned that unless he left Venice by the sixth of January, he would be assassinated. There was a plot to kill him, but one of the intended murderers had confessed to the Superior himself, and under the seal of confession had begged the monk to save Alessandri’s life.

The priest, who does not seem to have been timid, was much surprised, but promised nothing as to leaving the city, though he appears to have at once considered

the means of getting away. But on that same evening the Superior received an anonymous note with these words: ‘Either the Abbé Alessandri will leave Venice to-morrow, and at once quit Venetian territory, or something serious will happen to him.’ The Superior sent for Alessandri again. The note, strange to say, had been delivered together with fifteen gold sequins, which the unknown writer sent to help the priest’s flight.

The priest now lost no time, but left at once for Fusina on the mainland, and finding no means of getting on at once, pursued his journey on foot. He had left with the monk a written receipt for the money, which he had been forced to accept, and he had also informed his employer, Monsieur Henin, of the cause of his sudden departure.

Monsieur Henin was furious, and not without some reason. He wrote a violent letter to the Venetian Government, inquiring how an unknown person could dare anything so outrageous in a well-regulated community. Who was instigating the outrageous crime? What monster had paid fifteen sequins to have the murder committed? What was the meaning of the pretended confession? Why did the villainous author of the abominable plan drag a monk into the plot? This was the gist of Monsieur Henin’s letter, and he ended by demanding the immediate arrest and condign punishment of the murderer, or murderers, and the recall of his fugitive secretary, who, he insisted, must be so well guarded by the government as not to be in fear of his life.

The Secretary of Embassy certainly had right on his side so far, but he followed up his letter in an interview with one of the Inquisitors, in which he declared his belief that it was the government itself that threatened Alessandri. The Inquisitors might have answered that they disposed of much simpler and surer means than the hand of a hired assassin whenever they wished to be rid of an obnoxious person. Henin suggested, too, that the outrage was instigated by Austria in order to exasperate France, an idea which seems deficient in logic.

Henin appears to have been a violent sort of person, and anything but a diplomatist. Of course he had right on his side, but Alessandri, on inquiry, turned out to be a bad character, and anything but the ‘mild, tranquil, reticent, and retiring’ creature of fifty-six, whom the Frenchman represented him to be. He had been obliged to leave his native city, Trent, for debt and various misdemeanours; he was a violent revolutionary, and in his ‘tranquil retirement’ he dwelt with a disreputable woman of the people, whom he had enticed away from her family; from which facts it was easy to argue that he had made himself the object of some private vengeance.

Nevertheless, and although Henin had not at that time any proper credentials as _Chargé d’Affaires_, the Inquisitors thought it best to avoid disturbance, and Alessandri was brought back and properly protected. Almost immediately upon this Henin received credential letters from his government, and asked to present them to the Senate.

The Savi, who detested the man, were much disturbed; and as the Senate and the Great Council left the matter to them, they asked the assistance

[Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 207._]

of those of their colleagues who had served their time and retired. As they wore black cloaks the people nicknamed them the ‘Consulta Nera,’ the ‘Black Cabinet.’

Not to receive the official representative of the new French government would have been contrary to the policy of strict neutrality adopted by the Venetian Republic; to receive him was to irritate Austria and to expose Venice to an attack from that side. She had pursued a policy of half measures, and the end of half measures is always a fall between two stools. The fall was precipitated by the soothing eloquence of one of the speakers, who assured his colleagues that all Europe would understand and forgive them for yielding to necessity.

The Senate accordingly voted with the Black Cabinet that Henin should be received, but instructed its ambassadors at the various European courts to convey information of the fact with all the circumspection possible, and in such a way as to palliate the action of the Venetian government in the eyes of the world.

While this was going on, the secretary whom the Venetian Ambassador Pisani had left in charge at Paris, wrote an eloquent letter describing the

[Sidenote: _1793._]

death of Louis XVI., and he sent at the same time a scrap of the cloak which the King had worn on his way to the scaffold. This caused the most profound emotion. In the Senate, Angelo Quirini loudly declared that all diplomatic relations with a government of hangmen and executioners must be instantly broken off.

The matter was still in discussion when Henin demanded, in the name of his government, the authorisation to place the arms of the French Republic over the door of his residence. As his credentials had been accepted it was impossible to refuse this request, but the general indignation of the better sort of the people was unbounded.

There were now two parties in Venice. On the one hand, the secret emissaries of France preached revolutionary doctrines, and stirred up the criminal classes; on the other, a vast literature of pamphlets, articles, satires, and caricatures, all attacking the French, were openly circulated throughout the city. In the hope of diverting the attention of the whole population from political matters the Savi made frantic and extravagant efforts to amuse everybody. The very last carnival before the end was the most magnificent ever remembered.

In the year of the French King’s murder, Bonaparte was a captain of artillery, and France was about to face the first coalition of the powers, after putting down the royalists in Vendée.

Henin continued to annoy the Signory in every possible way, and made the smallest incidents the subjects of official complaint and protest. He was at last recalled, but his successor was a man called Noël, who was such a notoriously bad character that the Venetian Senate put off receiving his credentials again and again on all sorts of grounds, doubtless believing, too, that the French revolutionary government was not going to last even so long as it did. To gain time was to save dignity, thought the Senators. But Noël grew tired of waiting, and abruptly returned to Paris in a very bad humour, to stir up against Venice the resentment of the Committee of Public Safety.

It was now no longer an easy matter to keep up

appearances of neutrality. England, especially, lost no opportunity of urging Venice to join the European League, and Worsley, the last English Minister, was perpetually insisting on a rupture with France.

Another circumstance occurred to increase the difficulty of Venice’s position. The Comte de Lille, afterwards Louis XVIII., who styled himself Regent of France during the captivity of his nephew, the unfortunate child Louis XVII., being obliged to leave Piedmont, asked permission to reside in Verona, and the Signory, anxiously hoping for a restoration in France, received him with the honours due to his rank and the welcome a friend might expect. At this the French Republic took umbrage and protested violently, but the Venetians answered that the presence of the Comte de Lille in Verona, where he led a retired life, was no violation of neutrality.

The Savi now had more on their hands than they could manage, for they were obliged at one and the same time to watch the movements of the revolutionary propaganda and to keep themselves informed of the doings of the royalist party who plotted in Venice to restore the French monarchy. And meanwhile, in spite of a nominal press censorship, the _Postiglione_ newspaper satirised the French Republic in the bitterest manner, giving Robespierre constant cause of complaint.

Diplomatic relations were now strained almost to the breaking point. Pisani was still supposed to be the Venetian Ambassador in Paris, though

[Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 231-239._]

he resided in London, and the French Envoy in Venice had left in disgust at not being received. On the latter point the French yielded, and sent another and more respectable representative, a certain Lallement, whom the Signory consented to receive in spite of the objections of the English Minister.

The question now arose, who was to succeed Pisani in Paris, and how the new envoy was to be styled. Lallement had brought very simply worded credentials, and had agreed to assume any designation which the Signory desired. The Savi were much distressed about this matter, but they selected Aloise Quirini for the mission, and at last decided that he should be addressed neither as Ambassador nor Minister, but simply as ‘the Noble Quirini.’ They could hardly have chosen a title better calculated to irritate a government which held that nobility was a worse crime than forgery or assassination.

The Noble Quirini accordingly went to Paris with a very magnificent salary, and with instructions to keep up the splendid traditions of former Venetian representatives abroad.

But meanwhile the child Louis XVII. had disappeared from the scene, and the Comte de Lille, or the Comte de Provence as he was called

[Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 252._]

when not travelling incognito, was a source of much anxiety to Venice. He was now undoubtedly the legitimate King of France, and his modest residence in Verona had become a court at which every point of etiquette was most rigorously observed. The European powers encouraged him in his efforts to restore the monarchy in his own person, and England, Austria, and Russia sent envoys to him in Verona without in the least considering the difficulties which their action might cause the Venetian government.

At this juncture France invented another form of government, and Lallement appeared before the Senate with an entirely new set of credentials as

[Sidenote: _1796._]

the Envoy of the Directory, which, he declared, was no less disposed than its predecessors in power to remain ‘in perfect understanding and on the most friendly terms’ with the Venetian Republic. The man who was to end the hideous and grotesque succession of butcheries and farces which had lasted seven years was in favour with this last-hatched and half-fledged government, and his dominating influence was beginning to be felt. Bonaparte was now twenty-six years old; he was grown up.

A few months earlier Lallement had read before the Venetian Senate a proclamation which the ‘Representatives of the People’ sent to the army

[Sidenote: _1795._]

of the Alps, as a general warning against the Genoese, the Tuscans, and the Venetians, who, in spite of their protestations of friendship, allowed their ships to capture and plunder French vessels on the high seas. By the end of 1795 the French were masters of the Riviera, having beaten the Austrians very badly.

Venice was now accused of having violated her neutrality by allowing the passage of Austrian troops through her dominions. She answered that she had acted in accordance with a very ancient treaty which accorded the Empire the use of the road to Gambara, and that she was as neutral as ever; but this the French found it hard to believe. When further accused of favouring royalist intrigues, the Signory made a show of punishing the authors of a few libels on the Directory.

As for Louis XVIII., as the Comte de Lille was now called by his adherents, Venice was reluctantly obliged to ask him to leave her territory, as the Directory threatened war if he remained.

He departed, shaking the dust from his feet. He demanded that the name of his family should be

[Sidenote: _Smedley, Sketches from Venetian History, ii. chap. xx. note._]

erased from the Golden Book, and that the armour of his ancestor Henry IV. should be given back to him. This armour Smedley rightly conjectures to have been the sword worn by Henry IV. at the battle of Ivry, with which he had knighted the Venetian Ambassadors after his accession, and which he then presented to the Treasury of Saint Mark’s.

The Signory entirely refused to accede to the Comte de Lille’s demands. It could not deprive itself, it replied, of the satisfaction of counting the royal family of France amongst its nobility, and it could not bring itself to part with such a valuable gift as it had received from Henry IV.; and with this quiet answer to the Russian envoy who represented him the Comte de Lille had to be satisfied.

But France was not, and the Inquisitors received many private warnings to the effect that the French government would seize upon any pretext for attacking Venice. ‘Arm, if you hope not to be trodden under foot!’ Such was the burden of these fruitless messages.

Austria, Sardinia, Naples, and Pius VII. openly allied themselves together, and the Duchies of Parma and Modena secretly promised their help. Genoa was paralysed by the vicinity of the French army; Tuscany was playing the game of neutrality, like Venice.

The Signory had great confidence in the army of the allies and in its chief, Bonaparte was only a boy; the old general Beaulieu would easily beat him.

But the Signory was mistaken. The boy had grown up--‘Napoleon, Apollyon, destroyer of Cities, being a Lion roaming about,’ as the barbarous Greek jest on his name has it.

XVII

THE LAST HOUR

The end was at hand when Bonaparte crossed the river Po. One is apt to forget that he had already showed himself to be much more than a victorious

[Sidenote: _1796. Rom. ix. 284._]

general, and that throughout the campaign he displayed that marvellous skill in dealing with men which so often ensured him an enthusiastic reception in places where he could not have been expected to be welcome.

He had soon realised the horrible impression produced everywhere outside of France by the Revolution, the Terror, and the Committee of Public Safety, and he hastened, by his numberless agents, to exalt the virtues of the Directory. They were not a herd of bloodthirsty ruffians, he taught, but an assemblage of the future saviours of mankind, who were to emancipate the world from all those ancient political and social prejudices which had so long held it in bondage.

He could not unteach the scum of the Italian populace what the agents of the Revolution had taught it with such lavish expenditure in disreputable taverns and worse resorts, but he could control the teachers and gradually change the direction of the education. The Venetian gondoliers could be taught something, too, and the Venetian Barnabotti could be bribed to learn anything, and to impart what they learned.

‘No organisation,’ says Bonnal, ‘was ever superior to his (Bonaparte’s), no revolutionary organisation was ever more formidable. We mean “revolutionary” as regards the legitimate governments

[Sidenote: _Bonnal, Chute d’une République, 273-274._]

existing in Italy, with which we were not at war, and as regards the means used.... It was at Milan that his system became a definite official service, both political and military. Thence arose two principal offices exactly answering the aim he was pursuing, that is, the political propaganda and the military propaganda. By means of the political propaganda he sought to bring about either the substitution of one domination for another, or the modification of the forms of government.... Lombardy is an example of the first case, the Italian Duchies of the second. By his military propaganda he roused the populations to arms, sometimes against the legitimate sovereign, as happened in Venice and Parma, sometimes against a foreign power, as at Milan.’

Once more, as in the war of the Spanish succession, the Venetian territory became a refuge and a provision market for two hostile armies. The fortresses, as has been seen, were really at the mercy of any one who chose to occupy them. On the ninth of May the Imperial troops, yielding to the request of Contarini the Governor of Crema, and supposing the place to be capable of defence, consented to pass by the city without entering it. If they had insisted no one could have hindered them, and the letter Contarini afterwards wrote to the Venetian government disturbed even the astounding optimism of the Savi. The latter were shocked when they thought of the risk they had run, and by way of getting rid of all further responsibility they appointed a Provveditor to watch over the safety of the Venetian territory. More than this their worst enemies could not have expected them to do. They selected a Foscarini for the office, and were particularly careful to admonish him that he must ‘preserve intact the tranquillity of the Republic, and administer comfort and consolation to its subjects.’ I translate literally the phrase, which sounds like the drivelling of an old man in second childhood.

The imperial troops were barely out of sight of

Crema when the French appeared, and Contarini renewed his request that the city might not be entered. Berthier consented, but requisitioned provisions and forage. Soon afterwards came Bonaparte himself and he also consented to pass on, but not until he had squeezed every particle of available information out of the governor, whose letter narrating the interview gives a remarkably clear idea of the great young man’s conversation.

The Senate wrote to the Commander of the fortress of Peschiera not to allow any foreign soldiers to enter under any circumstances. I have described the condition of the place elsewhere, and the unlucky colonel at once answered, inquiring what in the world he was to do in order to prevent the passage of the Imperial troops.

The Austrian general Liptay found it convenient to install himself in Peschiera for some time, and when the Republic protested, he answered with admirable coolness and much truth that the place was not a fortress at all, and that he was encamped there as the French were in the fields towards Brescia.

Even Bonaparte understood the absurdity of this case. ‘The truth about the affair of Peschiera,’ he wrote to the Directory, ‘is that the Venetians

[Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 297-299._]

have been duped by Beaulieu; he asked leave to pass with fifty men and then made himself master of the city.’

In spite of this conviction, Bonaparte took advantage of the incident to declare to the Provveditor Foscarini that he would burn Verona to punish the Venetians for having favoured the Austrian troops; and Foscarini, obliged to act on the spur of the moment and without consulting the government, opened the gates of Verona to Masséna on receiving the latter’s assurance that the city should not be burned. He probably fancied that he had obtained a great concession, and did not understand that Verona was absolutely necessary to the French as a base from which to advance on Mantua, held by the Imperial troops.

The news of the occupation of Verona produced the utmost alarm in Venice, yet the Great Council was not summoned, nor was there a regular sitting of the Senate. The days had gone by when the great bell of Saint Mark’s was rung backward to call every fighting man to arms, and every aged Senator to the Council. The handful of scared and vacillating men who had steered Venice to her end met stealthily by night in the Casino Pesaro, more like conspirators than defenders of their country. Most of them fancied the French already in the lagoons, if not in the city; some, forgetting that they had neither troops nor captains, were for defence to the death; some, who had secretly adopted revolutionary ideas and principles, rejoiced at heart because the end was so near.

Such a meeting of such men could come to nothing; and nothing was decided except that Foscarini, the Provveditor, should be assisted by two other nobles, commissioned to negotiate with Bonaparte.

They went and found him apparently in the mildest and most friendly humour, but the report of their interview with him reached the Senate together with a communication from the Inquisitors explaining Bonaparte’s plan for taking possession of the fort of

Legnago, making sure of the free navigation of the Adige, and threatening to destroy Venice in order to extort a sum of five or six millions of francs.

So Venice, still theoretically neutral, was driven to collect such poor forces as she had by land and sea, in order to defend herself against the depredations of the combatants. She had not a single general to direct her men, or to plan a defence. Three nobles were in charge of her boundaries on the mainland; another was made responsible for the capital, and two were placed in charge of the lagoons. A war-tax was levied, too, and it is due to the citizens of the dying State to say that they were generous to their country to the last. Many citizens of all classes gave large sums of their own free will to help the defence, and not in Venice only; the cities of Friuli and Dalmatia, and even small communities at a great distance, made heavy sacrifices spontaneously for the public safety.

The historian Romanin was of opinion that even at that moment, if the government had found resolution enough to sacrifice all her possessions on

[Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 321._]

the mainland, as at the time of the League of Cambrai, a clever diplomacy might yet have saved the State. But he was a Venetian and a most patriotic one, and he could not understand that it needed something more than skill to keep Venice alive, that it needed life itself, the life that was all spent, at last, after more than a thousand years.

The Provveditor for the lagoons, Giacomo Nani, wrote to the Doge the courageous words: ‘A State has not the right to possess provinces which it cannot defend.’ He, too, remembered the League of Cambrai. But the Doge was not to be roused; it was no longer vacillation, it was paralysis of the will that made him follow the Senate. Yet Nani’s letters determined the Savi to look about for some general into whose hands the whole defence might be given. It was the old tradition of employing the condottiero; but there was only one man alive just then who had the genius and the conviction that save a cause all but lost; he was a man who could have stopped a host with Falstaff’s ragged company, and he was at the gates of Venice. The Savi hit upon the Prince of Nassau as a possible captain, but Austria stepped in and forbade that he should be called.

The King of Naples now signed an armistice with the French, and Bonaparte made himself at home on the Venetian mainland, quartering his troops at Bergamo, Brescia, and Crema without ceremony, and merely notifying the Venetian Senate that he did so, as if no excuse were needed. He took the Venetian guns he found at Legnago and used them at the siege of Mantua as if they were his own. Bonaparte was well aware of the truth of what Nani had written to the Doge, and he took full advantage of the axiom. If the governors of the cities in which he chose to stop did not please him, he wrote them notes like the following:--

... I beg you, Sir, to let me know what game we are playing, for I
do not believe you will allow your brothers in arms [the French
soldiers!] to die without help

[Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 341._]

within the walls of Brescia, or to be murdered on the highroad. If
you are not able to keep order in your country, and to make the
city of Brescia furnish what is needed for establishing hospitals
and for the wants of the troops, I shall have to take more
efficient measures.--Believe me, with feelings of esteem and
consideration,

BONAPARTE.

Bonnal says of him that he avenged legitimate complaints with a host of accusations and denials, and with unmistakable threats; and the Venetians

[Sidenote: _Bonnal, 275._]

made excuses. Whereupon Bonaparte answered that he would ‘beat the Austrians and make the Venetians pay for the war.’ Which he did.

At the same time he was writing to the Directory:--

... I am obliged to be indignant with the Provveditor, to
exaggerate the number of assassinations, etc., in order that he, to
calm my fury, may furnish me everything I

[Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 351._]

need; they will continue to give us what we want, willingly or by
force, until Mantua is taken, after which I shall demand of them
such contribution as you may order me, which will not be in the
least difficult.

If Bonaparte could find pretexts for accusing the Venetians of helping the Austrians, the latter had excellent reasons for complaining that Venice helped the French. Austria and France were the two stools between which half measures had led the Republic, and between which she fell.

The position of the French army was not enviable at that time, and the alliance of Venice would really have been worth having, which was the reason why her obstinate efforts at neutrality exasperated Bonaparte to such a degree. At last his patience gave out and he ordered General Baraguay d’Hilliers, the father of the marshal of that name who died in 1878,

[Sidenote: _Twenty-fifth of December 1796._]

to occupy Bergamo, not as a guest, but as master. The Austrians at once replied by seizing Palma and Osopo.

The peasants and the small communities were now driven to extremities; for the Government had left them to their fate, and they were plundered alike by the French and the Austrians. Discontent spread rapidly, and the rural population may be supposed to have been in the best possible disposition to receive the revolutionary doctrines by which Bonaparte had already called into existence the Cispadane Republic. That short-lived affair was made up of the cities and territories of Ferrara, Bologna, Modena, and Reggio d’Emilia, and was momentarily the headquarters of republicanism. In spite of all that the remnant of government in Venice could do against it, its influence was felt on Venetian territory. Behind all, the propaganda of Milan worked

[Sidenote: _Rom. x. 12._]

steadily to carry out Bonaparte’s plan under General Landrieux, whom he had deputed to take charge of that end of it.

Bergamo was the first city to rise and drive out the Venetian governor, in order to join the Cispadane Republic; the city of Brescia followed,

[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Nuovi Studi, 356._]

naturally enough. But the country people of the two provinces still remained faithful to the Republic, and the peasants about Brescia were so indignant with the city for its defection that they would have marched upon it to burn it down if they had not been hindered by their Bishop, Dolfin. At Vallesabbia, certain emissaries of the republicans from the city were so ill received that they fled precipitately in fear of their lives.

Two days after the latter incident, the inhabitants of the villages of the valley met in a field

[Sidenote: _March 1797._]

near Nozze, and drew up the following declaration, which was approved with absolute unanimity.

VALLESABBIA,
_March 27th, 1797_.

In order to record its own fidelity and obedience to its beloved
Prince of Venice, and taking oath of perpetual loyalty and
adherence to the said Prince, this body votes that if persons of
any class or condition are found in this Valley having the cockade
of rebels against the Prince of Venice, and actually having that
cockade on their hats, any one shall be free to arrest them, and
let him have a prize of three hundred lire piccole for each one, of
[the funds of] the Valley.

And let this present vote be made known in every commune and put up
in the usual and habitual places for public notices; and it is not
to go into effect for three days, within which the parish priests
in their parishes shall publicly give notice of it to the people.
And if gangs of rebels against the Prince of Venice, or troops of
theirs, enter the Valley, the communities comprising the Valley
shall ring the bells with a hammer [meaning to ring them out, and
not to ‘chime’ them only]; and whosoever is between sixteen and
sixty years old, and whosoever else will volunteer, is to take arms
in the name of the Valley to arrest them [rebels or troops], and
may also kill them; and whoever refuses shall be punished by
confiscation of all his goods.

The government might have done something to encourage people capable of such devotion; it might at least have ordered them to send deputations to the capital to give information of the state of the country. This the province of Verona asked to be allowed to do, through the Marchese Scipione Maffei, in a petition which the Savi suppressed, without even

[Sidenote: _Rom. x. 32._]

presenting it to the Great Council, because they considered that it might lead to dangerous discussion. They confined themselves to recommending every subject of the most Serene Republic to act with the greatest circumspection towards all the French, as the Venetians had no means of defending themselves against the latter’s pretensions.

In spite of the bad impression made by such weakness, more than thirty thousand men from the provinces volunteered to put down the republican rising, but they had to be sent home for lack of funds and weapons. One hundred young men of the burgher class offered to arm and support themselves at their own expense. From all this it is clear enough that, at the very last, the descendants of the nobles who had made Venice were responsible

[Sidenote: _Nievo, Memorie d’un ottuagenario, 262._]

for her fall. Ippolito Nievo said pithily, that the Venetian aristocracy was a corpse that could not revive, while the Venetian people were a living race shut up with it in the tomb.

The republican revolution thus progressed almost without finding any resistance and practically aided and abetted by the French troops. Bonaparte was so sure of his plan that he did not even make a mystery of it to the envoys of the Venetian Republic who met him at Goritz. He actually offered to pacify the Venetian provinces for the modest sum of a million of francs monthly for six months, which was generous, considering that he alone had caused all the disturbance. A Venetian noble of the fifteenth century would certainly have got the better of him in such a matter of business, but he was too much for the two nobles with whom he had to deal. The monthly million was granted, but on condition that he was not to interfere in the civil discord that distracted the Republic, and not to hinder the government in its efforts to reduce the rebellious cities to subordination.

Such an attempt was made, and the insurgents were beaten more than once, and some of the ringleaders were brought to Venice. In other times

[Sidenote: _Rom. x. 56._]

they would have been tried by the Council of Ten and hanged within twenty-four hours; now they were merely confined in the fort on the Lido, in charge of two nobles, Tommaso Soranzo and Domenico Tiepolo, who were recommended ‘to treat them charitably.’

But these successes so greatly encouraged the reaction against the insurrection that Bonaparte feared lest he should lose some of the fruits of

[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Nuovi St. 356, 357._]

his industrious propaganda. Accordingly, by his instructions, General Landrieux accused the Venetian troops of threatening the French army in the valleys of Bergamo, and ordered the Venetian Governor, Battaglia, to be put in irons, and his ‘accomplices’ to be hanged. These were mere threats, of course, but after that the rebels were openly supported by the French. On the other hand, the communities that meant to remain faithful to the Republic invoked its help a last time before returning the weapons they had taken from the insurgents, and swore that if they were only given a leader they would die to a man in defence of Venice. Even after the French had occupied the whole Venetian territory the Senate still received loyal letters from Vallesabbia; one of these ended with these words: ‘Our hearts will always be for Saint Mark, and we therefore swear to break any promise that may be before long got from us by force, at the first sight of the Venetian standard we love.’

The truce of Judenburg between France and Austria was destined in Bonaparte’s opinion to decide the destinies of the Republic. Junot appeared suddenly in Venice on Good Friday, bringing a despatch from Bonaparte dated the ninth of April. A more violent and theatrical document can hardly be imagined. The general accuses the Venetians of rousing the country people to murder the French and ordering a perfect Massacre of the Innocents. His magnificent generosity has met with ‘impious perfidy’ on the part of the Senate. His adjutant offers peace or war, and war is declared if the authors of the massacres are not delivered. Observe, that as there had been no massacres, no authors of them could be given up, and therefore the declaration of war was made; Bonaparte was always logical. He was ‘not a Turk,’ he adds; he was not even an enemy. These were ‘not the days of Charles VIII.,’ and he gave the Venetians twenty-four hours to realise the fact or perish. But he would not come like their ‘assassins,’ to ‘lay waste the lands of an innocent and unhappy people.’ He came to protect. The people would ‘one day bless even the crimes which had obliged the French army to free them from the tyranny of Venice.’

Bonaparte’s name is still execrated throughout Italy, and in a large part of the south ‘French’ means ‘abominable.’ Even the southern sailors call a dangerous storm ‘French weather.’

Junot had been informed that the government could transact no business till after Holy Week, but he insisted on being received, and read the despatch before the Doge and the Signory in an imperious tone. Bonaparte possessed a marvellous dramatic sense, and he trained his men to act his comedies to perfection. In the part of the Avenging Angel, Junot was terribly impressive.

It may be supposed that even then Venice had a choice: she might submit, or perish bravely in self-defence. But such men as Ludovico Manin and the Savi were not free to choose. No weak man is when the strong man has him by the collar. The Signory was used to humiliation, and was past shame, and it followed to the end the path it had chosen.

The truce between France and Austria continued, but only the possession of Venice could be the basis of a durable peace. Bonaparte’s plan was to exasperate the Venetians till they really violated their neutrality, and then to seize the city. No one ever comments on the morality of conquerors nowadays. Virtue has nothing to do with the greatness of princes. Bonaparte’s scheme was odious, of course, but it succeeded.

It had been part of the comedy to christen a ship of the French fleet ‘the _Liberator of Italy_.’ With this vessel a certain commander, Laugier,

[Sidenote: _Rom. x. 112 sqq._]

was despatched to carry out Bonaparte’s stratagem. The ship sailed up towards the Lido, stopped a fishing-boat, and took an old

[Sidenote: _April twentieth, 1797._]

fisherman for a pilot. The man protested that foreign war vessels were not allowed to enter the harbour. Laugier threatened to hang him, and set him to con the wheel, after asking him many questions as to the vessels of which Venice disposed.

When the ship was opposite the Lido she saluted, and the guns of the San Nicola Fort answered; as Laugier did not bring to, the commander of the fort, Domenico Pizzamano, sent two boats alongside him to warn him not to enter, yet the French captain took no notice. Other French vessels were following at a distance; Pizzamano fired two shots to warn them off, and they bore away. Laugier now said he was going to anchor, though he did not clew up his top-gallant sails nor otherwise shorten sail; it is clear that there was only a very light breeze on that day.

A Venetian galley lay at her moorings in the Lido harbour, and Laugier proceeded to foul her, intentionally without doubt, for he evidently knew his business. This was enough. The two vessels were close alongside, and their crews were fighting one another in an instant. At the same time the cannon from Fort Sant’ Andrea chimed in, and an indescribable confusion followed. Laugier was killed by a ball; the old fisherman who had steered him in was wounded, and died soon afterwards. The Venetians got the better of the fight, and plundered the French war vessel in spite of Pizzamano’s desperate efforts to prevent it. The French officers and crew were handed over to the ‘benevolent custody’ of Tommaso Soranzo and Domenico Tiepolo.

The account of the affair sent by the Minister, Lallement, to the Directory was wholly untrue, of course; but Bonaparte had what he wanted.

He was so sure of it that by the preliminary treaty of Leoben, preceding the treaty of Campo-Formio, he had already ceded to Austria all the

[Sidenote: _April eighteenth. Rom. x. 121, and Document at 377._]

Venetian provinces that lay between the Po, the Oglio, and the Adriatic; it was pretended that in compensation for these she was to receive the three legations of Romagna, Ferrara, and Bologna.

Much of this preliminary agreement had been kept secret; but the Venetian Ambassador in Vienna, Grimani, knew of the general tenor of the document, and warned the Senate that it was intended to dismember the Venetian territory.

The Senate was roused from its apathy when it was

too late, and now sat permanently. Orders were given that no stranger was to be allowed to enter the city unless bearing official letters, and no ship was to pass into the lagoons that did not fly the Venetian flag. Some attempt was made to get more vessels ready for sea.

The French had not wasted time, and a general insurrection had broken out under their management in all the cities of the mainland. Within twenty-four hours the governors of Padua, Verona, and other important places came in for refuge, as also the Provveditors of the army, whose occupation was gone.

Meanwhile two nobles, Francesco Donà and Leonardo Giustiniani, had been sent in haste to Gratz, after Junot’s appearance, and they were received by Bonaparte on the twenty-fifth of April. The interview that followed is highly characteristic of the man when it suited his ends to work himself into a fury. The political prisoners were to be liberated, or he would ‘come and break down the Piombi; he would have no Inquisition, no antique barbarities.’ He spoke of the imaginary massacre of his innocent troops. ‘His army cried vengeance, and he could not refuse it.’ ‘If all the culprits were not punished, if the English Minister were not driven away, if the people were not disarmed, if all the prisoners were not set free, if Venice would not choose between France and England, he declared war.’ ‘He would have no Inquisition, no Senate, he would be an Attila to the Venetian State.’ And much more to the same effect, all of which is on record. The two Venetians answered sensibly, when they could get in a word, but Bonaparte meant war, and when he meant that he would listen to no one.

Having acted his scene, he asked the two to dinner and proceeded to extract information from them, after his manner. His inquiries chiefly concerned the horrors attributed to the aristocratic government by the very imaginative French democratic mind; for the lower classes, being nearer to nature, have always had much more imagination than their social betters, which explains their belief in ghost stones, hidden treasures, and the rights of man.

After dinner Bonaparte condescended to state his demands. He wanted twenty-two millions from the Venetian mint and all English drafts deposited in Venice. That was all. There was no mention of the Duke of Mantua’s treasure, from which the envoys suspected that it was included in the secret treaty of Leoben, but I find no mention of it in that curious document, though it may have been tacitly included in Article VI. which provided for the restitution of Mantua and other places to Austria.

Having thus expressed himself, Bonaparte left the envoys to their reflections and went off to Bruck. Almost at the same time they received news of the fighting at the Lido, with instructions to inform Bonaparte of the death of Laugier, with all the caution possible; they did so by letter, and probably congratulated themselves on not being materially able to convey the news by word of mouth; but they nevertheless really asked another audience. He answered in a fury, called Laugier’s death an assassination, and spoke of them and the Venetian Senate as ‘dripping with French blood.’ If they had anything new to tell him, he would receive them, he said, after writing on the same page that he would not.

They went before him again, poor men, and listened once more to his furious language. ‘Not a hundred millions of money, not all the gold of Peru, would now prevent him from avenging the blood of his men,’ and so forth, and so on. This was the truth, as he had purposely risked shedding it for the very purpose of being revenged.

On the twenty-ninth of April, French troops occupied the Venetian frontiers, and General Baraguay d’Hilliers entered the capital with perfect assurance--and, it must be added, with perfect fearlessness--and installed himself in the best hotel. The Senate tried in vain to ascertain from him Bonaparte’s intentions; the soldier answered that he was accustomed to obey his chiefs without question and that he knew nothing of their plans. He had been told to come to Venice and he had come.

On learning that Bonaparte so very particularly detested them, the Savi agreed that it was no longer safe to meet publicly, and they held their sittings in the Doge’s private apartments in the presence of the Counsellors, and the ‘Savi of the Mainland,’ ‘Savi of Orders,’ ‘Savi of Writings,’--Savi of every species. To all these were added the three Heads of the Ten. This last assembly was a sort of amplification of the Black Cabinet already explained.

They have been described as the sextons of the Republic, met together to arrange the details of the funeral. Their acts and resolutions can only excite pity. The first question discussed on the night of April thirtieth was whether a supposed intimate friend of Bonaparte’s (Haller, at one time French Minister of Finance) should be treated with in order to calm his master’s anger. The next question was, whether this proposition might be discussed at once, or whether eight days must be allowed to pass before beginning the debate, according to the law. A third question asked what measures should be taken to inform the Great Council of what was happening.

Several hours had been consumed in these miserable quibbles, during which no attention was paid to the distant booming of guns from the direction

[Sidenote: _Rom. x. 138._]

of Fusina, when a messenger brought a letter for the ‘Savio on Writings.’ He passed it on anxiously to the Savio of the week, who opened it with evident emotion. It was a message from Condulmer, in command of the flotilla of the lagoons, to say that the French had begun operations for improving the approaches to Venice, and that he was going to attempt to destroy what they did as fast as they worked. It was at this moment that the Assembly first noticed the sound of artillery. In the frightened silence the Doge walked up and down the room. ‘To-night we are not safe even in our beds,’ he said.

The Procurator, Pesaro, turned to the Secretary: ‘I see that it is all over with my country,’ he said, in broad Venetian dialect. ‘I can certainly be of no assistance. To an honest man, every place is his country; one may easily occupy oneself in Switzerland.’

He rose as he finished this remarkable speech, apparently with the intention of proceeding to Switzerland at once, but his colleagues ‘comforted’ him, he took snuff, and sat down again to help Valeressi in framing a measure for calling the Great Council together on the morrow. These curious details can be trusted. Pesare was afterwards, in fact, the first to make his escape to Istria and Vienna.

During the remainder of the meeting it was debated whether it might not be possible and advisable to give Venice a democratic form of government likely to please Bonaparte, and the majority adopted the idea of introducing any modifications which he might suggest.

It was hoped by this means that he would be moved to forgive the Inquisitors and the captain of the Lido, whose punishment he had demanded, and to excuse the Venetian banks from handing over the English drafts.

The next day was the first of May, the anniversary on which the Doge had always paid his annual visit to the Convent of the Vergini, since the days of Pier Candiano, a ceremony which was always the occasion of great festivities in the city. But to-day, instead, the bell of the Grand Council was ringing, and the nobles assembled anxiously. The Doge explained in broad dialect the situation of the Republic with regard to France. Peace, he said, must be made with Bonaparte

at any price, and the best thing the members of the Council could do was to say their prayers and ask the help of Heaven in their supreme danger.

Heaven, as usual in such circumstances, did not help those who would not help themselves. The Council thought it had done wonders when it voted by 598 to 21 that two deputies should be sent to Bonaparte with power to discuss radical changes in the Venetian constitution. The envoys chosen were Angelo Giacomo Giustiniani, who had been Provveditor extraordinary in Treviso since the second of April, Alvise Mocenigo, the Governor of Udine, and Francesco Donà. They were given regular credentials, and were, as usual, exhorted to use the utmost caution in all they said.

On the same day Bonaparte declared war against Venice in his most furiously bombastic style. The document must be read, not to be believed, as most of the statements it contains were totally untrue, but to appreciate the marvellous gifts of the man of genius who composed it. It is long, and I have not space for it; I can only say that it altogether outdid the former letters and speeches I have referred to.

The deputation found Bonaparte in Treviso. To the eternal glory of the family that had lost an hundred of its name in one campaign, Giustiniani quietly faced Bonaparte on every point, reproached him with the shallowness of the pretexts under which he justified his acts of violence, swore to the sincerity of the Venetian government when it had protested that it had no intention of doing any injury to the French, and concluded by saying that if Bonaparte required a hostage or a victim he, Giustiniani, was there to give his life.

Bonaparte was everything except a coward. He was a conqueror and a comedian, a brutal dictator and a subtle diplomatist; he was a great commander and he was the Little Corporal. He was also as brave as the bravest man in any of his armies. Giustiniani’s speech affected him strangely, for he well knew what terror he inspired in most people. His sudden admiration for the Venetian patriot was as boundless as everything else in his nature, and broke out in words of praise. He concluded by promising that even if he confiscated the property of every noble in Venice, whatsoever belonged to Giustiniani should be respected. There spoke the man of the middle class that Bonaparte always was. The gentleman answered proudly that he had not come to promote his own interests when those of his country were so desperately at stake.

A truce of four days was signed, within which time the three Inquisitors of State and the commander of the Lido fort were to be arrested and punished, and all political prisoners were to be set at liberty.

On the fourth of May the Doge had the courage, or the cowardice, to propose to the Great Council the arrest of the Inquisitors and their impeachment as required by Bonaparte. There

[Sidenote: _Rom. x. 159._]

was no hope for Venice in any other course, he said.

This dastardly measure was voted by 704 votes to 27. The Inquisitors and the commander of the Lido were arrested and taken to San Giorgio Maggiore, and all the political prisoners were released from the Piombi, the Pozzi, and the other prisons of the city. On the following day, two hundred and eighty-eight Frenchmen who had been taken with weapons in their hands during the insurrections in the provinces were handed over to Baraguay d’Hilliers in Venice.