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
[Illustration: OUT IN THE LAGOON]
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
[Illustration: THE SALUTE FROM THE LAGOON]
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
[Illustration: FROM THE PONTE S. ROCCO]
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.