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
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.’