|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 36
After stopping two hours at Verona, I proceeded on my journey without
being aware of the massacre which threatened that city. When about a
league from the town I was, however, stopped by a party of insurgents on
their way thither, consisting, as I estimated, of about two thousand men.
They only desired me to cry 'El viva Santo Marco', an order with which I
speedily complied, and passed on. What would have become of me had I
been in Verona on the Monday? On that day the bells were rung, while the
French were butchered in the hospitals. Every one met in the streets was
put to death. The priests headed the assassins, and more than four
hundred Frenchmen were thus sacrificed. The forts held out against the
Venetians, though they attacked them with fury; but repossession of the
town was not obtained until after ten days. On the very day of the
insurrection of Verona some Frenchmen were assassinated between that city
and Vicenza, through which I passed on the day before without danger; and
scarcely had I passed through Padua, when I learned that others had been
massacred there. Thus the assassinations travelled as rapidly as the
post.
I shall say a few words respecting the revolt of the Venetian States,
which, in consequence of the difference of political opinions, has been
viewed in very contradictory lights.
The last days of Venice were approaching, and a storm had been brewing
for more than a year. About the beginning of April 1797 the threatening
symptoms of a general insurrection appeared. The quarrel commenced when
the Austrians entered Peschiera, and some pretext was also afforded by
the reception given to Monsieur, afterwards Louis XVIII. It was certain
that Venice had made military preparations during the siege of Mantua in
1796. The interests of the aristocracy outweighed the political
considerations in our favour. On, the 7th of June 1796 General Bonaparte
wrote thus to the Executive Directory:
The Senate of Venice lately sent two judges of their Council here to
ascertain definitively how things stand. I repeated my complaints.
I spoke to them about the reception given to Monsieur. Should it be
your plan to extract five or six millions from Venice, I have
expressly prepared this sort of rupture for you. If your intentions
be more decided, I think this ground of quarrel ought to be kept up.
Let me know what you mean to do, and wait till the favourable
moment, which I shall seize according to circumstances; for we must
not have to do with all the world at once.
The Directory answered that the moment was not favourable; that it was
first necessary to take Mantua, and give Wurmser a sound beating.
However, towards the end of the year 1796 the Directory began to give
more credit to the sincerity of the professions of neutrality made on the
part of Venice. It was resolved, therefore, to be content with obtaining
money and supplies for the army, and to refrain from violating the
neutrality. The Directory had not then in reserve, like Bonaparte,
the idea of making the dismemberment of Venice serve as a compensation
for such of the Austrian possessions as the French Republic might retain.
In 1797 the expected favourable moment had arrived. The knell of Venice
was rung; and Bonaparte thus wrote to the Directory on the 30th of April:
"I am convinced that the only course to be now taken is to destroy this
ferocious and sanguinary Government." On the 3d of May, writing from
Palma Nuova, he says: "I see nothing that can be done but to obliterate
the Venetian name from the face of the globe."
Towards the end of March 1797 the Government of Venice was in a desperate
state. Ottolini, the Podesta of Bergamo, an instrument of tyranny in the
hands of the State inquisitors, then harassed the people of Bergamo and
Brescia, who, after the reduction of Mantua, wished to be separated from
Venice. He drew up, to be sent to the Senate, a long report respecting
the plans of separation, founded on information given him by a Roman
advocate, named Marcelin Serpini; who pretended to have gleaned the facts
he communicated in conversation with officers of the French army. The
plan of the patriotic party was, to unite the Venetian territories on the
mainland with Lombardy, and to form of the whole one republic. The
conduct of Ottolini exasperated the party inimical to Venice, and
augmented the prevailing discontent. Having disguised his valet as a
peasant, he sent him off to Venice with the report he had drawn up on
Serpini's communications, and other information; but this report never
reached the inquisitors. The valet was arrested, his despatches taken,
and Ottolini fled from Bergamo. This gave a beginning to the general
rising of the Venetian States. In fact, the force of circumstances alone
brought on the insurrection of those territories against their old
insular government. General La Hoz, who commanded the Lombard Legion,
was the active protector of the revolution, which certainly had its
origin more in the progress of the prevailing principles of liberty than
in the crooked policy of the Senate of Venice. Bonaparte, indeed, in his
despatches to the Directory, stated that the Senate had instigated the
insurrection; but that was not quite correct, and he could not wholly
believe his own assertion.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|