That same day Manin left the Doge’s Palace for his own small house. All day the people passed before the door, saying, “Here lives our poor father! How much he has suffered for us!” He was too absolutely worn out to see any one. At midnight he with his wife and son and invalid small daughter went on board the French steamer Pluton. All but one of them were taking their last farewell of Venice.
The municipality, knowing that their great leader was penniless, had gathered a small sum of money and forced him to accept it before he left. He felt that the other exiles were in as great need of it as he, and so quietly distributed it among them through friends on the various ships that were bearing the exiles away. He had thought of the people as his children for so long a time that he had still to take the care of them upon himself.
The little family of four felt that it was farewell as they watched the palaces and churches, towers and pillars of the City of the Lagunes drop beneath the horizon. The view of Venice from the sea, incomparably beautiful, must have been unspeakably sad to Manin’s eyes.
When they arrived at Marseilles the devoted wife fell ill of cholera, and, worn out with the long siege, was powerless to resist. She had written on leaving Venice, “All is over, all is lost save honor! I am going to a foreign land, where I shall hear a language not my own. My beautiful language, I shall never hear it again; never more!” She died soon after reaching Marseilles.
Manin took his two children with him to Paris, and gave himself up to nursing the little girl, who was the victim of a continual nervous disorder. The daughter and father were united by a bond of love that was wonderfully strong and spiritual, they seemed to understand each other always without words. He kept a little note-book record of her illness as an aid to the physicians, and after his death the book was found with the touching inscription on the cover, “Alla mia Santa Martire.” Her desire to comfort her father sustained her for some years, she knew that she had become to him in a spiritual manner the living image of his unhappy country. She struggled with all the heroism of a remarkable character to hide her sufferings from him even as he sought to hide from her the anguish her illness caused him. Daniel and Emilia Manin were worthy to be father and daughter, both were heroic souls. In 1854 Emilia died, her last words, “My darling Venice, I shall never see you again!”
Manin and his son stayed on in the French capital, the father giving lessons in Italian for support. He had harbored no resentment against France for her failure to come to the aid of Venice, he felt that the French people were near kin to his own. He welcomed all Italians or sympathizers with Italy, he predicted that eventually the entire peninsula would be one in freedom. He met Cavour in Paris and talked long about Venice with him, he was gradually becoming convinced that Piedmont could and would lead the other states to victory. His study was hung with portraits of the most dissimilar characters, all one in interest for his country, Charles Albert opposite to Mazzini, Garibaldi opposite Gioberti, Montanelli near D’Azeglio. He wrote articles on Italy for the papers and traveled in England to arouse British interest in his cause. It was a great day when he saw the Italian tri-color flying beside the French and English flags to show that Piedmont had joined the allies in the Crimean war. “In serving under the tri-colored flag of Italian redemption,” he wrote, “the soldiers who fight in the Crimea are not the soldiers of the Piedmontese province, but the soldiers of Italy.” He understood the boldness of Cavour’s great diplomatic stroke and gave Piedmont the credit she deserved in becoming the first envoy of a great nation.
While his strength lasted Manin worked in the cause, but finally he was overcome by physical sufferings. He wrote in June, 1857, to his friend the Marquis Pallavicino, “A month’s rest in the country has not calmed the fever of my poor brain. All work, all meditation, is utterly impossible to me. Not only cannot I think about serious things, but I am not able to give my mind to the most unimportant matters. This will explain my silence. I lose patience and hope. My painful and useless life becomes intolerable. I ardently desire the end. Farewell.” The physical weariness with which he had battled all his life was at last overpowering him. He still believed that his principles would ultimately conquer, but knew that he should not see Venice freed. September 22, 1857, he died, at the age of fifty-three years.
August 30, 1849, Radetzky and the Austrians had entered Venice, replaced the Lion banner of St. Mark with the yellow and black flag of Austria, and had expected to see the pleasure-loving city sink back into its former quiescent indolence. What they expected did not come to pass. Instead for seventeen years Venice mourned its lost liberty and lived only in the thought of that day when it should rise again and finally. There was no shame in this subjection, no happy compromise. This was Manin’s achievement, he had made his people worthy to be free. That was the purpose of his heroic struggle, the lesson of his life.
July 5, 1866, the yellow and black flag of Austria fell from the pili, and October 18 of that same year the red, white, and green flag of united Italy greeted a free Venice. There was one wish in the people’s heart, that only their “dear father Manin” might have lived to see that glorious day.
The remains of Manin, his wife and daughter, lie now close to the Church of St. Mark, his statue looks down upon the people in the square before his house even as he so often stood on the Palace balcony to speak to them in the days of 1849. All through Venice there are reminders of him, and he has taken his place among the great heroes of that historic city—himself her greatest hero, her sincerest patriot. The simple advocate, the great President, the “dear father” of the Venetian people.