This coup de main was most successful, but Lauriston did not execute the rest of his programme by attacking Cattaro, for he was himself besieged in Ragusa instead.
His forces amounted, as I have said, to about 800 men, but he sent to Molitor at Zara for reinforcements and supplies, which arrived from Spalato soon after; the garrison was thus raised to 2000. Ragusa was put in a state of defence, the guns in the arsenal were mounted, a cargo of powder for the Turks seized, and the Ragusavecchia-Obod line held by 200 Frenchmen. A few days later the Montenegrins and Orthodox Bocchesi, instigated by the Russians, advanced into Canali, which they proceeded to pillage, while 500 more landed from Russian ships near Ragusavecchia. The French drove them back, but fearing to be cut off if the Russians landed at Breno, they withdrew to that point, and then to Bergato, where they were joined by reinforcements under General Delgorgue. The Russian squadron sailed up and landed a force at Breno, which encouraged the Montenegrins to attack Delgorgue. He was hard pressed by the enemy, who availed themselves of every inch of cover. On June 17 he attempted a bayonet charge, which failed, and he himself was killed in the mêlée; the retreat became a rout, Bergato was abandoned, and the Russians seized Monte Sergio and Gravosa. Ragusa was filled with refugees flying before the Montenegrins, and from that day was closely invested. A Russian attack on Lacroma was repulsed, but on the 19th the bombardment commenced. The battery on Monte Sergio discharged 3374 shells in seventeen days, but only twenty-three people were killed. All the houses round the town were razed to the ground; the villas of the rich nobles were plundered, the more valuable contents being seized by the Russian officers, and the rest left to the Montenegrins, Bocchesi, Canalesi, Bosnians, and even Turks, who had swarmed down in the hope of loot. The inhabitants who did not get away in time were murdered and even tortured. On June 22 there was a suspension of hostilities, and the nobles tried to induce Lauriston to surrender, which he refused to do. On the 28th Admiral Siniavin summoned him to capitulate without success; the bombardment recommenced, but without much vigour, and the siege became a blockade.
Suddenly on July 6 a body of French troops appeared before the Porta Ploce, and soon after Molitor himself arrived, drove off the Russians, and entered the town. When the news of the defeat at Bergato reached Zara he had quickly collected 2000 men and advanced on Ragusa. He sent a message to Lauriston which was designed to fall into the hands of the Russians, announcing his arrival at the head of 10,000 men; he also made a small body of troops march several times past a spot near Ombla whence they could be seen by the enemy. The Russians, thus deceived as to the strength of the French, abandoned Monte Sergio, and together with the Montenegrins fled to the coast and embarked on board ship. The French were received at Ragusa with much show of enthusiasm, for although a large part of the population had no sympathy with them, they rejoiced that the siege was at an end, and the fear of a sack of the town by the Montenegrins removed.
Molitor returned to Zara, Lauriston remaining behind to organise the French protectorate at Ragusa. He discovered that the Senate had sent an agent to Constantinople with a report bitterly reviling the French, another to Vienna and St. Petersburg asking for intervention in favour of Ragusa, and a third to Paris with a humble letter to Napoleon, and instructions to ask the Turkish ambassador to protest against the occupation of a State tributary to the Porte. He also learned that the Republic had deposited 700,000 florins in Schuller’s bank at Vienna, of which a part had been withdrawn in March and June. The French Commissary thereupon declared that henceforth all affairs dealt with by the Senate and the Minor Council should be first communicated to him, and that no payments were to be made without his authority.
Although Lauriston in his proclamation of May 29, 1806, had promised that Ragusa would be evacuated when peace was declared, the French had no intention of doing so, and on July 21 Napoleon wrote to Eugène Beauharnais: “You will make General Lauriston observe that if I have said in the treaty (the peace of Oubril, which the Tsar afterwards refused to ratify) that I recognise the independence of Ragusa, that does not mean that I shall evacuate it; on the contrary, when the Montenegrins have gone home, I intend to organise the country, and then abandon it if necessary, retaining only Stagno.” The Ragusans did not know of this, and believed that they would soon be free, but their hopes were dashed to the ground when, on August 24, war broke out again.
The French paid the indemnities for the siege very liberally—13,000,000 francs—as the money was to be provided for by Austria, whom they held responsible for all the consequences of the Russian occupation of Cattaro. On the strength of this generosity the Senate tried once more through Count Sorgo, a Ragusan resident in Paris, to get the other loan of 600,000 francs refunded, but without success. At last, on July 8, 1807, the Peace of Tilsit was signed, by which Russia gave up Cattaro to the French. Berthier, in a letter to General Marmont, who was now in command in Dalmatia, wrote: “Ragusa must certainly be united to Dalmatia; you must therefore continue to fortify it.” On August 13 Marmont stopped at Ragusa on his way to Cattaro, and received the Senators very affably; but in the course of conversation he said to one of them: “Vous allez être des nôtres.” On being asked for an explanation of these ominous words, he added “that in the present circumstances they could not remain free: the delegates having said that without merchant shipping the State could not exist, Marmont replied that by belonging to the great Emperor His Majesty would find means of compensating them. The next day the General told the delegates who had called on him that he was instructed to inform them of their future destiny, and that pending the arrival of those to whom the organisation of the new Government was entrusted, that of Ragusa might continue in its functions.”[540]
The declaration seemed the death-knell of Ragusan independence, and Timoni describes the condition of the State in consequence of the French occupation: “Agriculture ruined, the merchant navy reduced to inaction, public finances dilapidated, private citizens crushed down by requisitions, the monasteries converted into barracks, the invasion of the Jews as army contractors, the establishment of a masonic lodge and a club, and on the top of all this the blindness of the people and the bourgeoisie who receive the French with open arms.” As Timoni observes, the French party was still strong among the middle and lower classes, who were tired of the oligarchic rule of the nobles.
As soon as Marmont had departed a secret meeting of the Senate was held, and it was decided to send a disguised messenger to Vienna with a petition to the Emperor of Austria. As usual insufficient secrecy was observed, and Marmont heard of their action, but did nothing for the moment. On November 4 a demand was made for 300 sailors for the Franco-Venetian fleet, to which the Senate replied that in Ragusa there was always an insufficiency of seamen, that a third of the crews were foreigners, and that many of their ships had been captured by the Russians or were abroad. Instructions were sent to Kiriko, the Ragusan consul at Constantinople, to try to obtain Turkish intervention. But the French ambassador, General Sebastiani, had so much influence with the Porte that Kiriko had been obliged to remove the Ragusan arms from his house, and to request the Ragusan ship-captains to substitute the tricolor for the banner of St. Blaize. For this the Republic dismissed him from his office, and sent Antonio Natali to inform the Sultan of the dangers which menaced “the oldest and most faithful tributary of the Porte.” On December 21 Lauriston informed the Minor Council that Ragusan ships must take out Italian patents within three days on pain of being seized on leaving the port. The Senate replied that it could not take such a step without consulting the Ottoman Government. Two days later Lauriston left Ragusa, and on the 26th Colonel Godart put up a notice declaring that any captain who did not hoist the Italian colours at once would be imprisoned. On January 2, 1808, General Clauzel took command of Ragusa, and on the 6th the tricolor was hoisted on the flagstaff in the Piazza. The Senate tried to send Count Caboga to the Emperor of Austria, but Clauzel prevented his departure. Urgent messages were despatched to Constantinople, and overtures were even made to Timoni. “Consul,” they said significantly, “Ragusans or Austrians.” The Pasha of Bosnia was also approached, but he was friendly to the French, and informed them of all the Ragusans’ communications. On the 30th Marmont returned to Ragusa, and summoned the Senate, saying that he had a declaration to make. “The Council,” writes Timoni, “gathered together in less than an hour, and Colonel Delort repaired to the Palace, followed by the Consul Bruère, the war commissary, the commander of the garrison, the interpreter Vernazza, and two other officers. The Colonel sat down beside the Rector, and read out to the Senate a document in which the Government of Ragusa was accused of disloyalty, of having set the Pasha of Bosnia against the French, of having tried to raise an agitation among the people; the intimation made by Marmont the preceding August not having had any effect, it was now necessary to take further measures. He then drew another paper from his pocket, and read as follows:—
“‘The General Commander-in-Chief in Dalmatia orders: The Republic of Ragusa has ceased to exist; the Government and the Senate, as well as the law-courts, are dissolved. M. Bruère is appointed provisional administrator of the State of Ragusa.’
“The Senators were silent for a while; then Count Biagio Bernardo Caboga arose, and informed the Colonel that neither the moment nor the circumstances permitted him to enter into a long justification; that, as far as concerned himself, his conscience was pure and clear, and that he could answer for the loyalty of his colleagues. The Senate was ready to submit to the Divine Will as manifested through the organ of His Majesty Napoleon the Great.”