The conference agreed; Manin sent for the commander-in-chief of the civic guard. “The city is threatened with bombardment,” he said. “I wish to take the arsenal at all hazards. You must make me commander-in-chief for a day. Form the six battalions into two brigades, and give me their captains for eight hours.” The general, astounded at the advocate’s demand, left without making a reply. Manin sent to the other commanders making the same demand. One by one they refused, claiming that the project was too wild.
Meanwhile the soldiers at the arsenal were in mutiny and had killed the second officer in command; there was danger of the spirit of anarchy spreading. At the same time the last of the commanders, Major Olivieri, placed his single battalion at Manin’s command. The advocate seized his sword, called his son, a boy of sixteen, to follow him, and put himself at the head of the two hundred guards. The little band marched on the arsenal and forced the commander to surrender; almost before the Austrian officers knew what had happened the Venetians were distributing the military stores among the people. At the moment of taking the arsenal Manin had sent word to call the whole people into St. Mark’s Square. He found the ancient banner, the wingéd lion, and raising it from the dust where it had lain for fifty years he unfurled it before his company and led them back across the Piazzetta into the great square. He had told the people he would meet them there at noon; now he stood before them, bearing the emblem that proclaimed that Venice had risen from her lengthy slumbers. He spoke to the assembled city. “Venetians, we are free! And we are so without the shedding of blood, either our own, or our brothers’, for to me all men are brothers. But when the old government is overturned, the new must take its place; the best now seems to me to be the Republic which speaks of our past glory and adds the liberty of modern times. But by this we shall not separate from our Italian brothers, but rather form one of those centers destined to aid in fusing our Italy into one people. Live the Republic! Live liberty! Live Saint Mark!”
The civic guards swore to defend with their lives the new Republic and its founder, the aged wept, the young embraced, all raised their hands in gratitude to heaven. The people reveled in noble delirium of joy. Venice looked upon Manin as its deliverer; the citizens did not know the physical anguish he had undergone. Pathetic are the words of his little daughter Emilia as she heard her father proclaimed. “I ought,” she wrote, “to be filled with ineffable gladness, but a weight continually presses my heart.”
Manin had scarcely closed his eyes for five days and nights. As soon as the people would release him now he went home utterly exhausted: he said to his friends, “Leave me at least this night to rest, or I shall die.”
The Austrian authorities saw that resistance would be of little avail, their own forces were too small and too much in sympathy with the people’s cause to give them a sense of any real power on which to rely, and accordingly the Governor acceded to the terms imposed upon him. All foreign troops were to be removed, the forts and all military stores surrendered, the government transferred to the charge of a Committee of Venetian citizens. The demands were sweeping, the Austrian government later regarded the Venetian capitulation as the most humiliating they suffered in the revolutionary year of 1848.
That same night the provisional government announced to the people the terms of the Austrian capitulation, and the citizens were amazed to find that neither the name of Manin nor of Tommaseo was included in the new government. They made their dissatisfaction so apparent that friends went to see Manin to beg him to send some message to the people. He dictated the following lines from his bed: “Venetians! I know that you love me, and, in the name of that love, I ask you to conduct yourselves, during the legitimate manifestation of your joy, with that dignity which belongs to men worthy of being free. Your friend, Manin.”
The people heard the message and quietly dispersed. Next day the provisional government found that the new Republic would only have the one man at its head, and so they asked Manin to form a government. He did so immediately, taking for himself the Presidency of the Council and Foreign Affairs. He composed his government of men of different classes and different religions, all Venetians were assured of perfect equality in their new state. The patriarch blessed the standard of the Republic, and the commander of the fleet read the list of the ministry to the people. The reading was broken by constant cries of “Viva Manin! President of the Republic!”
Thus Venice became free after fifty years of bondage. It was now Manin’s concern to see that she was kept free. He recognized how slight were her resources, and he became at once an eager adherent of French intervention in northern Italy. Charles Albert of Piedmont and Mazzini were both acclaiming an Italy won by the Italians, but Manin foresaw, what Cavour was later to recognize, that foreign allies were absolutely essential.
France, however, was in a most unsettled condition, her ministers did not wish to see a strong state of upper Italy on their southern borders; they were already longing to annex Savoy, and yet as good republicans they felt themselves bound to aid the revolted states against Austrian tyranny. Manin made overtures for an alliance, at first merely feeling his way, but as the summer progressed, and the need grew more and more apparent, by definite overtures. The French Consul at Venice was most hopeful. He said to Manin, “It is well known that the sympathy of France, when she possesses liberty of action, is never without results.” In reply Manin said that he hoped “that the united efforts of the different Italian states, the ardor which animates the people of the Peninsula, will suffice to expel the enemy; if not, we shall have recourse to the generosity of France. Meanwhile, we should be glad to see at once some French vessels in the Adriatic, and I beg that you will lose no time in communicating our wishes to the foreign ministry.”
Manin wished to convene a popular assembly as soon after he assumed office as possible, and on June 3 such a deliberative body met, its members having been elected by universal suffrage from Venice and the free districts of the Dogado. Their first important task was to decide whether they would join with Lombardy in union under Piedmont’s King. Manin believed that the decision as to such a step ought to be deferred until the war was ended, but a strong party opposed his opinion. His partisans entered into a bitter fight with the opposition, for a time it looked as though the split in the Assembly would lead to civil war. Manin rose and implored those who were his friends to place no further obstacles in the path of fusion. Moved by his passionate appeal for harmony the Assembly passed the act of fusion with few negative votes, and at the same time resolved that “Daniel Manin had deserved well of his country.” He spoke again, saying, “While the foreigner is still in Italy, for God’s sake let there be no more talk of parties. When we are rid of him we will discuss these matters among ourselves as brothers. This is the only recompense I ask of you.”