Venice on his flagship, the _Fama_--‘fame’--which came to anchor on the
twenty-fourth of May 1792. The body was followed from the mole to Saint
Mark’s by the clergy, the schools, the magistracies, and a vast
concourse of people. The funeral mass was sung in the presence of the
Doge, and the vast procession wended its way to the church of the
Serviti. To the martial sound of drums and the solemn roar of the minute
gun, Venice laid her last captain to rest beside his fathers.
[Illustration: THE SALUTE FROM S. GIORGIO]
XVI
THE LAST DIPLOMATISTS
During the seventeenth century the Republic had no doubt of her own
military strength, but nevertheless trusted much to her diplomacy; in
the eighteenth the latter was the last good weapon left her of the many
that had once been in her armoury, and skilled as her diplomatic agents
were, their efforts could not prevent her from spoliation by the Turks,
whose simple rule was to take first and to talk about rights
afterwards.
In a measure, too, Venice’s position as a neutral power was dearly
bought, and more than once in the war of the Spanish succession her
territory was the
[Sidenote: _Rom. viii. 5, sqq._]
scene of fighting between French and Germans. The same skill kept her
out of the field during the quarrels for the succession of Parma, of
Tuscany, of Poland, and of Austria, and obtained for Venetian
Ambassadors a place of honour in the congresses that resulted in the
treaties of Utrecht, Vienna, and Aix-la-Chapelle.
During the American war of independence, there were constant diplomatic
relations between the Republic and the American deputies who came to
France for the congress of Versailles. The Venetian archives contain a
letter signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, by
which the Americans hoped to lay the foundations of a commercial treaty;
but owing to the excessive caution of Venice the attempt had no result.
The Republic of the Adriatic had almost always looked eastward for her
trade, and distrusted the new world which she had declined to help to
discover. The original letter, written in the English language, and
addressed to the Venetian Ambassador in Paris, Daniele Dolfin, has not
been published, I believe; and I shall not insult the memory of such
writers by attempting to turn Romanin’s
[Sidenote: _Rom. viii. 229, 230._]
translation back into their language. The letter explains that the three
signers are fully empowered by their government to negotiate a friendly
treaty of commerce, and will be glad to enter upon the negotiation as
soon as the Venetian Ambassador is properly authorised to do so; in
signing they use the form, ‘your most obedient, humble servants.’ For
the benefit of any American who may wish to get at the original, I may
add that Romanin found the letter in the Archives of the Senate, with
the despatches from France of Daniele Dolfin, envelope 261.
A letter from another Venetian Ambassador in Paris, Cappello,
prophetically dated July fourteenth, 1788, exactly one year before the
destruction
[Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 153._]
of the Bastille, to the very day, sounds the first warning alarm of the
approaching revolution; few writers have better summed up the condition
of the French monarchy when it was on the brink of the abyss, and no
diplomatist could have given his own country better advice.
The Committee of the Savi, who concentrated all power into their own
hands, did not even communicate this letter to the Senate. Cappello
spoke still more clearly when he made his formal report in person, on
returning from his mission and after leaving Paris just when the King
was to be asked to sign the Constitution, a document for which the
Ambassador confesses that he can find no name. ‘It is not a monarchy,’
he says, ‘for it takes everything from the monarch; it is not a
democracy, because the people are not the legislators; it is not that of
an aristocracy, for the mere name is looked upon in France not as
treason against the King, but as treason against the nation.... The
National Assembly began by encroaching upon all powers, and by
confounding within itself all the attributes of sovereignty, usurping
the administrative functions from the executive power, and from the
judiciary the right of judging criminal cases.’
It is easy to understand the impression made by such a report, in the
course of which the Ambassador narrated the scenes that took place in
Versailles and at the Tuileries after the night of October sixth, 1789.
The aristocratic Venetian Republic sympathised profoundly with the dying
French monarchy; but it was impossible to believe that such a state of
things would last long, and the government was painfully surprised by
the letter in which Louis XVI. announced that he accepted the situation.
That letter is in existence. In it the King declares that he has
accepted the new form of government ‘of his own free will; that the
National Assembly is only a reform of the ancient States General, and
will ensure the happiness of the nation and the monarchy.’ The King
adds, as if to hide his weakness from himself, that what is called a
‘revolution’ is mostly only the destruction of a mass of prejudices and
abuses which endanger the public wealth, and that he was therefore proud
to think that he should leave his son something; better
[Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 178._]
than the crown as he had inherited it from his ancestors, namely, a
constitutional monarchy.
This letter, with its artificial enthusiasm, is dated March fourteenth,
1791, three months before the King’s flight and his arrest at Varennes,
and less than two years before his murder on the scaffold.
[Illustration: FROM THE PONTE DELLA PIETÀ]
Cappello’s successor as Ambassador in Paris, Alvise Pisani, continued to
keep his government informed of what occurred. On the twenty-fifth of
September 1791, Louis XVI. addressed another letter to his ‘most dear
friends, allies, and confederates,’ the Venetians, in which he expresses
the certainty that they will be rejoiced to hear of his having signed
the Constitution, which had so greatly shocked Cappello. In spite of the
painful impression produced by these documents, it was necessary to
answer them, if only as a matter of etiquette.
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
[Illustration: ON THE WAY TO FUSINA, FROM THE MOUTH OF THE BRENTA]
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
[Illustration: A LONELY CANAL]
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.
[Illustration: EVENING]
XVII
THE LAST HOUR