"How are the mighty fallen!" What would Sebastiano Ziani, Enrico Dandolo, Pietro Gradenigo, and many another Doge have thought of such a fate as this for the Venice of their love and pride?
The time was soon to come when another Doge, deposed by a resolution of the Great Council, should give the beretta to his servant,—we may believe with a sense of relief,—and say, "Take it away; we shall not use it any more." Napoleon had come to relieve him of his cares; and we cannot doubt that he was half welcome to those who were so weary of the rule of the Ten and the Three, the party who believed in revolution. The efforts made to keep the Republic alive were so feeble as to seem ridiculous. But what could be done without an army, without a navy, and without money? A deputation was sent to Napoleon, and his reply was sufficiently clear and comprehensive: "I have eighty thousand men and twenty gunboats. I will have no more Inquisitors, no more Senate. I will be an Attila for Venice."
On May 3, 1797, Bonaparte issued his proclamation: "The Commander-in-Chief requires the French minister to leave Venice; orders the several agents of the Republic of Venice to leave Lombardy and the Venetian Terra Firma within twenty-four hours! He orders the different generals of divisions to treat the Venetian troops as enemies, and to destroy the Lion of Saint Mark in all the towns of the Terra Firma."
The whole government—Doge, Senate, the Ten, and the Three—seemed to vanish into oblivion. The great Venetian Republic fell without a sound. Eight days after the manifesto the tricolor waved above the Piazza, a popular constitution was declared, and a provisional government established. The Venetian fleet was manned and sent to Toulon. The French took possession of Corfu; and Venice was wholly in the power of France, to be disposed of as might suit the will or the need of that nation. And the need soon came; for when, after a summer of fruitless negotiation with the Emperor of Austria, the snow appeared on the mountains, Napoleon decided to make peace. He would not risk a winter campaign, and said to Bourrienne, "Venice shall be exchanged for the boundary of the Rhine, and thus be made to pay for the war."
The treaty was signed at Campo Formio on the 17th of October. The ex-Doge, Lodovico Manin, when taking the oath of allegiance to Austria, sank insensible on the ground, and lived but a few days afterward. Thus he was spared the second humiliation of Venice, when, in January, 1798, the tricolor was replaced by the double-headed eagle, and the days of its captivity and oppression began.
Venice seemed now to be a make-weight to be used in Napoleonic treaties; and in 1805, at Presburg, the kingdom of Italy was ceded to its first conqueror, and Venice came within the government of the French Viceroy, Eugene Beauharnais. During ten years northern Italy, while not independent, was awake. New and broader ideas replaced the older theories; and the hearts of the people were filled with aspirations and hopes that were all blasted by the so-called Restoration of 1815, which confirmed a reign of tyranny in Venice. An Austrian Archduke, under Metternich, acted as Viceroy; and a system of secret courts, police spies, barbarous punishments, and oppressive taxation was inaugurated.
Under the French rule Italian soldiers remained at home, or won honors in the wars. Under the Austrians they were sent beyond the Alps, and the white-coated foreign troops held the Venetians as in a prison. The civil offices were filled by Germans, whose harsh gutturals conveyed no meaning, and inspired dislike in the soft-speaking Venetians, who were in turn incomprehensible to these officials. The simplest matters were laboriously referred to the Aulic Council at Vienna. Letters were not safe, since the spies opened them. No redress could be had through the press, which was gagged. The pillory, flogging, and other equally barbarous customs were revived; and, in short, no method was spared that could impress on the Venetians the thought that they were living and breathing by the permission and according to the will of a cruel tyrant. To quote from "The Dawn of Italian Independence," by W. R. Thayer:—
"The Italian must obey laws imposed upon him by a foreigner,—laws which had been framed without his voice, for the benefit of a master who dwelt at Vienna. Were a law good, he hated it because it was a cog in the great wheel of tyranny; were it bad, he hated it because it threatened directly his property, his freedom, or his life. Napoleon's rule had been despotic, but it had been despotic on a grand scale; he had conquered by force; he had opened avenues to glory; he had awakened a virile spirit, and shed round him large and stirring ideas: but these Austrians had sneaked into their supremacy; they were arrogant and conceited; their emperor was bigoted, petty, and unyielding; a man who depended on eavesdroppers and tricksters for his information; a man who had not a single heroic attribute, nor uttered, during the course of a long life, a single thought whereby mankind was made stronger or wiser; a martinet, only fitted to be the superintendent of a small reformatory school for juvenile criminals. So to the Italians the contrast between the recent French rule and the present Austrian was typified by the contrast between Napoleon and Francis; but the incompatibility between the two peoples had the deepest source,—it sprang from racial antipathy."
When, in 1848, Metternich was driven from Vienna, and the Austrians from Milan, the Venetians also were ready to demand and to conquer their liberty. Manin, who had been imprisoned a few weeks before, was released, upon an order from the governor, who dared not refuse it. A few days later he agreed to withdraw with all foreign soldiers, leaving the munitions and public treasure behind. The Venetian Republic, with Manin as President, was at once declared in the Piazza; the Italian tricolor again streamed from the three masts before the cathedral, and without fighting or bloodshed Venice was free. Her oppressors departed; her flag waved over her borders on the south and west. Her independence was recognized by the Consul of the United States; and all the people, with one accord, assembled in San Marco to thank God and their glorious saint that again Venice was a Republic.
The Republic was declared on the 22d of March, 1848, and on the 18th of June the Austrians began to draw trenches round Mestre, thus cutting off communication between the mainland and Venice. The National Assembly did not meet until July 3, when, after attending Mass in the cathedral, one hundred and thirty-three deputies ascended the Giants' Staircase, and entered the Hall of the Great Council. It was a remarkable gathering, and momentous consequences hung upon its decisions. Thayer says:—