It was probably the happiest time of his life. Honour, beyond that of a crowned head, was his own, and had the full relish of novelty to a mind which two or three years before was pining in obscurity. Power was his, and he had not experienced its cares and risks; high hopes were formed of him by all around, and he had not yet disappointed them. He was in the flower of youth, and married to the woman of his heart. Above all, he had the glow of Hope, which was marshalling him even to more exalted dominion; and he had not yet become aware that possession brings satiety, and that all earthly desires and wishes terminate, when fully attained, in vanity and vexation of spirit.
The various objects which occupied Buonaparte's mind during this busy yet pleasing interval, were the affairs of Genoa, of Sardinia, of Naples, of the Cisalpine republic, of the Grisons, and lastly, and by far the most important of them, the definitive treaty with Austria, which involved the annihilation of Venice as an independent state.
GENOA.
Genoa, the proud rival of Venice, had never attained the same permanent importance with that sister republic; but her nobility, who still administered her government according to the model assigned them by Andrew Doria, preserved more national spirit, and a more warlike disposition. The neighbourhood of France, and the prevalence of her opinions, had stirred up among the citizens of the middling class a party, taking the name of Morandists, from a club so termed,[292] whose object it was to break down the oligarchy, and revolutionize the government. The nobles were naturally opposed to this, and a large body of the populace much employed by them, and strict Catholics, were, ready to second them in their defence.
The establishment of two Italian democracies upon the Po, made the Genoese revolutionists conceive the time was arrived when their own state ought to pass through a similar ordeal of regeneration. They mustered their strength, and petitioned the doge for the abolition of the government as it existed, and the adoption of a democratic model. The doge condescended so far to their demand, as to name a committee of nine persons, five of them of plebeian birth, to consider and report on the means of infusing a more popular spirit into the constitution.[293]
The three chief Inquisitors of State, or Censors, as the actual rulers of the oligarchy were entitled, opposed the spirit of religious enthusiasm to that of democratic zeal. They employed the pulpit and the confessional as the means of warning good Catholics against the change demanded by the Morandists—they exposed the Holy Sacrament, and made processions and public prayers, as if threatened with a descent of the Algerines.
May 22.
Meanwhile, the Morandists took up arms, displayed the French colours, and conceiving their enterprise was on the point of success, seized the gate of the arsenal and that of the harbour. But their triumph was short. Ten thousand armed labourers started as from out of the earth, under the command of their syndics, or municipal officers, with cries of "Viva Maria!" and declared for the aristocracy. The insurgents, totally defeated, were compelled to shut themselves up in their houses, where they were assailed by the stronger party, and finally routed. The French residing in Genoa were maltreated by the prevailing party, their houses pillaged, and they themselves dragged to prison.
The last circumstance gave Buonaparte an ostensible right to interfere, which he would probably have done even had no such violence been committed. He sent his aide-de-camp La Valette to Genoa, with the threat of instantly moving against the city a division of his army, unless the prisoners were set at liberty, the aristocratic party disarmed, and such alterations, or rather such a complete change of government adopted, as should be agreeable to the French commander-in-chief. Against this there was no appeal. The inquisitors were laid under arrest, for having defended, with the assistance of their fellow-citizens, the existing institutions of the state; and the doge, with two other magistrates of the first rank, went to learn at Montebello, the headquarters of Napoleon, what was to be the future fate of the City, proudly called of Palaces.[294] They received the outlines of such a democracy as Napoleon conceived suitable for them; and he appears to have been unusually favourable to the state, which, according to the French affectation of doing every thing upon a classical model, now underwent revolutionary baptism, and was called the Ligurian Republic. It was stipulated, that the French who had suffered should be indemnified; but no contributions were exacted for the use of the French army, nor did the collections and cabinets of Genoa pay any tribute to the Parisian Museum.[295]
Nov. 11.