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
[Illustration: CAMPO SS. GIOVANNI E PAOLO]
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.
Bonaparte was now sure that he had only to show himself in order to be
master of the city. The Venetians also made haste to present Bonaparte’s
‘friend,’ Haller, with a little present of six thousand sequins in
bullion, in the hope that he would use his kind offices with the great
man.
‘I beg you,’ Bonaparte wrote about that time to the Directory, ‘to order
the citizen Haller, a scoundrel who
[Sidenote: _Bonnal, Chute, 287._]
has come here to steal, to present his accounts to the head manager’
(‘ordonnateur en chef’).
So much for Bonaparte’s ‘friend.’ The Republic also offered the most
profuse hospitality to Madame Baraguay d’Hilliers, in the hope that she
would soften her husband’s harsh temper.
By this time Bonaparte knew as well as Condulmer himself that the
Venetian fleet was miserably manned, and that the city must yield at
once if besieged, and he thought it quite useless to receive any more
envoys. Besides, he knew that his propaganda had succeeded in the
capital itself; his paid agents had done their work well, and it had
been bravely seconded by the manifest incompetence of the government
which had exasperated all classes. It is said that there were fifteen
thousand republicans ready to answer the first signal as soon as it
should be given by Villetard, the Secretary of the French Legation.
These were not by any means all of the people, for many ladies of the
nobility had been
[Illustration: SO-CALLED HOUSE OF DESDEMONA]
spending their time in making tricolour cockades, and the government
knew it.
The French no longer took the trouble to conceal the preparations they
were making for a revolution. A wholesale grocer who played a very
suspicious part in the whole affair, Tommaso Zorzi, was dining with
Villetard, and heard several Frenchmen speaking of the revolution that
was arranged for the next day; it was intended to set up a tree of
liberty in the Square of Saint Mark’s and to declare the fall of the
aristocratic government. When every one else was gone, Zorzi implored
Villetard to put off firing the train, and explained that a large part
of the populace would side with their old masters. The French Secretary
would promise nothing, and on leaving him Zorzi hastened to the ducal
palace and was received by the Doge in spite of the late hour.
He told what he had heard. The Doge sent at once for Pietro Donà, and
the two bade Zorzi obtain from Villetard a written declaration of the
conditions on which he would consent to give up the revolution. On the
following day Zorzi and his friend Spada appeared before the Savi with a
paper which they said they had drawn up in the presence of Villetard,
who had refused to write anything himself.
The impression one gets in reading this document is that Zorzi and his
shadow were in the trick with Villetard. The paper calls them
‘mediators,’
[Sidenote: _Rom. x. 386 for the text._]
talks of ‘pacifically changing the aristocratic forms of government,’
‘leaving open to the sight of the public the prisons called the Piombi
and Pozzi,’ abolishing capital punishment, setting up a tree of liberty
in the Square of Saint Mark’s, publicly burning the insignia of the old
government, a universal amnesty, and a Te Deum in Saint Mark’s, where
the image of the Virgin Mary was to be exhibited.
The paper also named the provisional government, in which the grocer and
his shadow were to occupy high positions.
This stuff was not read by Zorzi before the assembly. The Doge deputed
Pietro Donà and Francesco Battagia to hear him in a neighbouring room.
Donà dismissed him with the remark that the government would wait to
discuss such propositions until they were officially laid before the
Venetian envoys by Bonaparte himself.
Then Donà returned to the hall and communicated the contents of Zorzi’s
paper to the government. The effect was terrific. A few voices protested
that no attention should be paid to such an informal proposition, but
terror prevailed, and Donà and Battagia were charged to go at once to
Villetard to ask him to put off his revolution till the envoys should
return from their interview with Bonaparte. Villetard, for reasons known
to himself, granted the government a respite of four days.
Meanwhile it was thought wise to dismiss the Slavonic troops, yielding
in this to one of the demands expressed in Zorzi’s paper. Their presence
‘irritated’ Villetard. They were accordingly ordered home under the
command of Niccolò Morosini, but they did not leave at once.
On the twelfth of May the Great Council met. Early in the morning
Villetard had informed Battagia that the Venetian envoys sent to
Bonaparte had refused to accept a democratic and representative
government, but that the French meant to obtain it by force unless the
aristocracy would resign its powers. It was Haller who had brought the
news to Villetard after accepting a bribe of six thousand sequins a few
days earlier. An American politician once defined a scoundrel as ‘a man
who will not stay bought.’
Donà came back with an official letter from Villetard to the Doge, which
contained Bonaparte’s ultimatum. The city was in a state of nervous
excitement that must break into action before long; the members of the
Council were already in terror of their lives while they stood waiting
for the hour of meeting. Even then, everything had to be done according
to tradition. The patricians were, no doubt, devising more concessions
to be made to Bonaparte, as they moved towards the ducal palace, and
most of them were ready to sacrifice everything, including their honour,
in exchange for personal safety. The last of the Slavonic soldiers were
embarking under the direction of the Arsenal men; there were republican
conspirators everywhere, and they found their way even to the Doge’s
private apartments.
The Council met at the usual hour, and the roll was called. Only 537
members were present, whereas 600 constituted a quorum. It is possible
that the many absent members had hoped to obstruct all proceedings by
keeping away, for to the last the minutest rules had been observed. But
the members who had assembled decided that they had a right to act.
The Doge opened the sitting, pale and overcome. Painfully, and in his
Venetian dialect, he recapitulated the acts of the Consulta of Savi and
others, who had taken charge of affairs on the thirtieth of April. His
miserable speech was followed by the reading of the report of Donà and
Battagia, Haller’s letter, and other documents.
The Secretary, Valentin Marin, then read the measure which was brought
before the Council.
The Bill had the old sanctimonious tone. ‘The principal purpose of
preserving religion,’ etc., were the first words; the measure was, that
the Great Council should accept ‘the proposed provisional representative
government.’
The Secretary had finished reading the Bill, and was just beginning his
comments on it, when the sound of a discharge of musketry rang sharply
through the ancient hall. The patricians rushed to the doors. One voice
called them back.
‘Divide! Divide!’ it cried, above the din.
To the last gasp formality bound them. Hastily, but not informally, they
went through the form of voting. The Bill to accept the democratic
government was passed by 512 yeas to 30 nays and 5 blanks.
Then, in the twinkling of an eye, the
[Sidenote: _1797, May twelfth._]
hall was silent and empty.
[Illustration: SAILS]
XVIII
CONCLUSION
The discharge of musketry which had frightened the Great Council out of
its senses had been only the parting salute of the Slavonic soldiers as
they
[Sidenote: _Tassini, under ‘San Bartolomeo.’_]
sailed out of the harbour. It was the last mark of respect the Venetians
of Venice received, and it was by a dramatic coincidence that it was
offered at the very instant when the Republic ended. Every one has read
how the Doge went back to his own room and
[Illustration: A GATEWAY] handed his ducal bonnet to his servant,
saying that he should not need it again.
What has been less noticed by historians is that General Salimbeni, who
knew that the crowd was waiting to know what had taken place, put his
head out of a window and shouted ‘Viva la Libertà’; and that when no one
broke the silence that followed, he took breath again and shouted ‘Viva
San Marco,’ whereupon the multitude took up the cry and cheered till
they were hoarse, and the old flag of Saint Mark was hoisted everywhere,
and the populace took it into its head to burn down the houses of Donà
and Battagia and the grocer Zorzi, and though they were hindered, they
did plunder and burn the dwellings of a number of burgher families that
had played a double game and had helped to bring on the final
catastrophe.
In the midst of this confusion well-armed republican gangs appeared in
all directions, and during the night between the twelfth and the
thirteenth of May there was a hideous tumult. The last time that
Venetian cannon was fired by Venetian orders, it was pointed at
Venetians.
On the fifteenth, the French occupied the city as conquerors. On the
sixteenth, two notices were put up in the Square of Saint Mark’s. The
[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Nuovi Studi._]
first simply announced that the aristocratic government yielded up its
powers to a provisional Municipality which would sit in the hall of the
Great Council; and this was the last public document which began with
the words, ‘The Most Serene Prince announces,’ etc.
The other informed the public that the provisional Municipality of
Venice declared the Great Council to have ‘deserved well of the nation’
because it had abdicated; it thanked particularly the members of the
late government which had put down the riot on the night of the twelfth;
and it went on to declare a ‘solemn amnesty’ for all political misdeeds,
and so forth, and so on.
Then came the usual French nonsense about liberty, equality,
brotherhood, peace, the rights of man, and the like; all of which might,
perhaps, be excused on the ground of mistaken and foolish sentiment, if
we did not know that Bonaparte was even then almost in the act of
selling his newly found, free, and equal brothers into slavery to
Austria, then the most really absolute despotism in Europe.
The whole affair was a horrible farce. The new Municipality decided to
preserve the Lion of Saint Mark as the national symbol, but for the
words ‘Pax tibi Marce’ inscribed on the book under the Lion’s paw were
substituted the words ‘Rights and Duties of Man and Citizen.’ The
gondoliers observed that Saint Mark had at last turned over a new leaf.
The Lion, however, was soon thrown down from his column, and was broken
into more than eighty pieces on the pavement. On the fourth
[Sidenote: _Rom. x. 219._]
of June the tree or liberty was raised in the middle of the Square.
Around it were grouped emblems of the sciences and arts. Fagots were
heaped up near by, to make a fire in which the Golden Book and the ducal
insignia were solemnly burned between two statues representing Freedom
and Equality. Inane verses were inscribed on the pedestals of
[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Nuovi Studi._]
these images. Lest I should be thought to exaggerate their atrociously
bad literary quality I give the original Italian.
One ran:--
Depono la tirannide,
Sollevo l’innocente,
Ognor lieto e ridente
Il popol mio sarà.
The other said:--
Il libro d’ oro abbruciasi
L’accende il reo delitto,
All’ uom resta il suo dritto
La dolce libertà.
The Procuratie, both the old and the new, were renamed, according to the
revolutionary dictionary, ‘Gallery of Liberty,’ ‘Gallery of Equality.’
[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Ult. 218; also Tassini, 591._]
In the course of the month of June began the trial of the three
Inquisitors, Agostino Barbarigo, Angelo Maria Gabrieli, and Catterino
Corner, and of Pizzamano, the commander of the Lido fort. Even Bonaparte
was obliged to admit that there was nothing against them, but he would
not allow them to be acquitted; he thought it better policy to pardon
them ‘in consideration of their advanced age.’ His letter on the subject
is dated the fourth of October. But Pizzamano, though declared free,
was still kept in prison at Bonaparte’s pleasure, and on the
twenty-sixth of October sent a petition directly to the latter.
Bonaparte sent it on to General Serrurier, in Venice, with an order for
the man’s liberation written in the margin.
Bonaparte had kept up his comedy to the very last. On the eighth of
October, General Balland had given the Venetians, in his chief’s name,
the most ample assurances of attachment and devotion.
On the seventeenth, nine days later, by the treaty of Campo-Formio,
Bonaparte sold Venice and the whole Venetian territory to the Emperor of
Austria, including Dalmatia and Istria, in exchange for the Ionian
Islands, the Cisalpine Republic, the Duchy of Modena, and the provinces
of Lombardy as far as the Adige and Mantua.
Having got his price for the dead body, Bonaparte proceeded to strip it
of everything valuable, so far as he could, before handing it over. The
horses of Saint Mark’s were taken down from the façade of the basilica,
the most valuable pictures, parchments, and books were packed, and all
was sent to Paris.
The farce of freedom was over, and the bitterness of reality came back,
harder to bear, perhaps, but as much more honourable, as suffering is
more dignified than drunken rioting. On the eighteenth of January 1798
the Austrian garrison took possession of Venice.