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
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.