To interrupt these ominous sounds, two plenipotentiaries were despatched to make intercession with the French general; and, to prevent delay, the doge himself undertook to report the result.
The Grand Council was convoked on the 1st of May, when the doge, pale in countenance, and disconcerted in demeanour, proposed, as the only means of safety, the admission of some democratic modifications into their forms, under the direction of General Buonaparte; or, in other words, to lay their institutions at the feet of the conqueror, to be remodelled at his pleasure. Of six hundred and nineteen patricians, only twenty-one dissented from a vote which inferred the absolute surrender of their constitution. The conditions to be agreed on were, indeed, declared subject to the revision of the Council; but this, in the circumstances, could only be considered as a clause intended to save appearances. The surrender must have been regarded as unconditional and total.[284]
Amidst the dejection and confusion which possessed the Government, some able intriguer (the secretary, it was said, of the French ambassador at Venice, whose principal had been recalled) contrived to induce the Venetian Government to commit an act of absolute suicide, so as to spare Buonaparte the trouble and small degree of scandal which might attach to totally destroying the existence of the republic.
On the 9th of May, as the committee of the Great Council were in close deliberation with the doge, two strangers intruded upon those councils, which heretofore—such was the jealous severity of the oligarchy—were like those of supernatural beings; those who looked on them died. But now, affliction, confusion, and fear, had withdrawn the guards from these secret and mysterious chambers and laid open to the intrusion of strangers those stern haunts of a suspicious oligarchy, where, in other days, an official or lictor of the Government might have been punished with death even for too loud a foot-fall, far more for the fatal crime of having heard more than was designed to come to his knowledge. All this was now ended; and without check or rebuke the two strangers were permitted to communicate with the Senate by writing. Their advice, which had the terms of a command, was, to anticipate the intended reforms of the French—to dissolve the present Government—throw open their prisons—disband their Sclavonian soldiers—plant the tree of liberty on the place of Saint Mark, and to take other popular measures of the same nature, the least of which, proposed but a few months before, would have been a signal of death to the individual who had dared to hint at it.[285]
An English satirist has told us a story of a man persuaded by an eloquent friend, to hang himself, in order to preserve his life. The story of the fall of Venice vindicates the boldness of the satire. It does not appear that Buonaparte could have gone farther; nay, it seems unlikely he would have gone so far, as was now recommended.
As the friendly advisers had hinted that the utmost speed was necessary, the committee scarce interposed an interval of three days, between receiving the advice and recommending it to the Great Council; and began in the meanwhile to anticipate the destruction of their government and surrender of their city, by dismantling their fleet and disbanding their soldiers.
At length, the Great Council assembled on the 12th of May. The doge had commenced a pathetic discourse on the extremities to which the country was reduced, when an irregular discharge of fire-arms took place under the very windows of the council-house. All started up in confusion. Some supposed the Sclavonians were plundering the citizens; some that the lower orders had risen on the nobility; others, that the French had entered Venice, and were proceeding to sack and pillage it. The terrified and timid counsellors did not wait to inquire what was the real cause of the disturbance, but hurried forward, like sheep, in the path which had been indicated to them. They hastened to despoil their ancient government of all authority, to sign in a manner its sentence of civil death—added every thing which could render the sacrifice more agreeable to Buonaparte—and separated in confusion, but under the impression that they had taken the best measure in their power for quelling the tumult, by meeting the wishes of the predominant party. But this was by no means the case. On the contrary, they had the misfortune to find that the insurrection, of which the firing was the signal, was directed not against the aristocrats, but against those who proposed the surrender of the national independence. Armed bands shouted, "Long live Saint Mark, and perish foreign domination!" Others indeed there were, who displayed in opposition three-coloured banners, with the war-cry of "Liberty for ever!" The disbanded and mutinous soldiers mixed among these hostile groups, and threatened the town with fire and pillage.[286]
Amid this horrible confusion, and while the parties were firing on each other, a provisional government was hastily named. Boats were despatched to bring three thousand French soldiers into the city. These took possession of the place of Saint Mark,[287] while some of the inhabitants shouted; but the greater part, who were probably not the less sensible of the execrable tyranny of the old aristocracy, saw it fall in mournful silence, because there fell along with the ancient institutions of their country, however little some of these were to be regretted, the honour and independence of the state itself.
The terms which the French granted, or rather imposed, appeared sufficiently moderate, so far as they were made public. They announced, that the foreign troops would remain so long, and no longer, than might be necessary to protect the peace of Venice[288]—they undertook to guarantee the public debt, and the payment of the pensions allowed to the impoverished gentry. They required, indeed, the continuance of the prosecution against the commander of that fort of Luco who had fired on the French vessel; but all other offenders were pardoned, and Buonaparte afterwards suffered even this affair to pass into oblivion; which excited doubt whether the transaction had ever been so serious as had been alleged.
Five secret and less palatable articles attended these avowed conditions. One provided for the various exchanges of territory which had been already settled at the Venetian expense betwixt Austria and France. The second and third stipulated the payment of three millions of francs in specie, and as many in naval stores. Another prescribed the cession of three ships of war, and of two frigates, armed and equipped. A fifth ratified the exaction, in the usual style of French cupidity, of twenty pictures and five hundred manuscripts.[289]