[70] Gratarol intimates that Gozzi acted with bad faith in this negotiation, "operando in modo che altri consigliassero a resistere." He calls the meeting at Mme. Tron's "l'infernal conciliabolo [che] si tenne in ora più tarda nelle soglie della regnante Matrona." Loc. cit., p. 114.
[71] This letter is reported in the Narr. Apol., vol. i. p. 123.
[72] It is amusing to read Gozzi's Memorie and Gratarol's Narrazione side by side. Gratarol exclaims: "Conte, voi dovete la vita ad un qualche angelo tutelare che benedimmi acciò potessi frenare il cieco impeto," &c. He meditates an aperta vendetta, and so forth. Op. cit., pp. 115-117. And yet these two swelling turkey-cocks did not think of fighting a duel.
[73] Though this is told to his own advantage, Gozzi must have known that he was placing a new weapon in the hands of Gratarol's worst enemy when he consigned to Mme. Tron the letter of defiance.
[74] Gozzi here alludes, I think, to the attack on the actor Vitalba at Milan, which will be related farther on.
[75] Why did he not call Gratarol out? This is very comedian-like.
[76] Paolo Renier was one of the most striking figures in the last years of the Republic. A man of brilliant and versatile abilities, widely read and profoundly instructed by experience of the world, he possessed eloquence so weighty and persuasive that one speech from his lips had power to sway conflicting parties in the State and bring their heated leaders to his lure. (See Romanin, vol. viii. chap. vii., for an extraordinary instance of his oratory.) Yet Renier's character does not inspire respect. Before he became Doge, he had pursued a tortuous course in politics, and had only escaped serious entanglements by his extraordinary intellectual finesse. He married a woman off the stage, who impaired his social credit; and when he appeared as candidate for the ducal cap, he lavished bribes with cynical shamelessness. Gratarol has penned two pungent pages upon Renier's character, which are worth attention. "Talent and art," he says, "both fail me in describing this man of hundred colours. An intellect of the highest, a heart of the proudest, a face of the most deceptive; such are his component parts. A more fraudulently plausible orator, a more turbulent politician, I have never known. Whether fortune or some charm defends him, he always escapes unhurt from the mortal perils into which he wilfully plunges."—Op. cit., p. 77.
[77] Gozzi publishes a copy of his memorial to the Inquisitors of State. Since the document is long, and repeats what is already known to the readers of his Memoirs, I have not judged it necessary to translate it. The text will be found on pp. 395-399 of the second volume of the Memorie Inutili.
[78] Gratarol reports this letter, but expressly states that he was obliged by Signor Zon, secretary to the Inquisitors of State, to omit the words dimenticando il passato. His account of how he was compelled to sit down and scribble off the apology, while Zon stood over him, is very amusing. He taught his servant, on delivering the letter into Gozzi's hands, to repeat these words: "el mio paron xè stà comandà de scriverghe sto viglietto." In fact, Gratarol was forced by the supreme authority in Venice to send this apology, and refusal to do so would have involved his immediate imprisonment. According to his own confession, Gratarol, after hearing the ultimatum of the Supreme Tribunal, went to his writing-table and penned the above letter, expressing at the same time his readiness to kiss Count Gozzi's ... on the piazza, or to do anything else ridiculous which the Inquisitors might impose upon him. The Republic of S. Mark had reached the last stage of decrepitude, and well deserved to be swept into the lumber-room of bygone greatnesses, when Gratarol's and Gozzi's squabble about a woman and a play brought the machinery of state thus into action. Venice, always an artificial power (in the same sense as the Greek cities of antiquity were artificial), subsisting mainly upon commerce and on the tribute levied from dependencies, had in the eighteenth century dwindled into dotage, through lack of natural resources and revolutions in the world-trade. The rulers of Venice, reduced to insignificance among the powers of Europe, occupied their brains with parochial affairs and the contests of comedians. Op. cit., pp. 130-134.
[79] This reads like a satire upon Renier, whose elevation to the Dogeship was attended with a pomp and profligate expenditure, not to mention a lavish use of bribes, pernicious to all public and private morals. Compare Gratarol's account of an interview he had with Renier (op. cit., p. 79). The man made on Gratarol exactly the same sort of impression by his eloquence, philosophy, urbanity, and learning, mixed with a sense of untrustworthiness, that he did on Gozzi.