Lucia (16 page)

If Alvise was angry at Bonaparte’s deception he should have been even more so at his own disingenuousness. Yet as Lucia listened to her husband’s lament, she could not help noticing the superior tone in his voice. He sounded more indignant than sad or pained—how was it possible, he seemed to be asking, that his own peers had destroyed the Republic in which his family had had such a large stake? Lucia’s Venetian roots went even deeper than the Mocenigos’. The Memmos had been among the founding fathers of the Republic back in the eighth century, when Venice was little more than a cluster of islets in the lagoon. How would her father have reacted to the catastrophe? She had heard people say that if Andrea Memmo had been elected doge back in 1787 perhaps Venice would not have been so weak when Bonaparte arrived on the scene. But if the thought occurred to her now, she did not dwell on it. She knew her father’s hopes for Venice had dimmed in his old age; by the time gangrene attacked his body he had lost confidence in the Republic’s future. In a way she must have been glad Memmo was no longer there to witness the final collapse.

A
lvise ended the family reunion announcing rather vague plans for the future. What he feared most, he declared, was the confiscation of his properties. Perhaps, in due course, it would be to their advantage to become subjects of the Habsburg Empire; maybe even move to Vienna and transfer to Austria whatever assets could be salvaged. Many Venetian patricians had already done so, having left Venice before the arrival of the French troops. But it would be harder for them because Alvise was perceived as a French sympathiser in Vienna. One reason he was unhappy to discover he had been included in the provisional government was precisely because it was going to reinforce that impression. Still, he had no choice but to accept the appointment. On the positive side, he was going to be in a better position to protect family interests. He intended to sit on the finance committee and do his work quietly.

The new government held its first public meeting on 23 May, in the great hall of the Maggior Consiglio, where the Republic had been voted out of existence only nine days before. It was a chaotic session, interrupted by long-winded speeches in praise of democracy and passionate jeremiads against the old regime. Alvise found the rhetoric and the endless invective discouraging. He had little sympathy for the small group of Venetian Jacobins who had quickly seized control of the Committee of Public Safety, the heart of the government. And the feeling was mutual: as an influential member of the former oligarchy, he was looked upon with resentment and suspicion.

The first order of business was the proclamation of a national holiday: 4 June. For the occasion, Saint Mark’s Square was festooned with red, white and green, the new national colours. In the centre of the square a Liberty Tree was erected, and crowned with a Phrygian cap. General Baraguey d’Hilliers, dressed in high uniform, entered the square followed by all the members of the provisional government. The strangely assorted group marched twice around the square before halting at the Liberty Tree, at which point a fiery Jacobin monk, Pier Giacomo Nani, hurriedly recited a Te Deum—Baraguey d’Hilliers felt it would reassure the wary Venetian crowd. Vincenzo Dandolo, the pharmacist who headed the Committee of Public Safety, gave a speech thanking the French for bringing liberty and democracy to Venice. After a three-gun salute, a band struck the notes of the “Carmagnole,” a popular song in Paris during the Terror.

Lucia looked on from a distance. The ceremony seemed strained, and the mood of the sparse crowd hovering in the background was anything but festive. A few people started to dance around the Liberty Tree, shouting and making movements that seemed exaggerated. She saw her friend Marina Querini Benzoni, a glamorous beauty a few years younger than her, throw herself into a frenzied dance. She was wearing a light Greek tunic, open at the sides all the way to her hip. Her long braids slashed the air as she threw herself wildly from the arms of Fra’ Nani, the monk, to those of Ugo Foscolo, the passionate executive secretary of the municipal government.
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The dancing was more and more out of control. At first, General Baraguey d’Hilliers appeared amused, then he grew annoyed. All at once, the scene came to a climax: the wild-eyed Marina tripped and crashed and lay half-naked on the ground. She pulled herself together with the help of a few solicitous French officers, and resumed her dance. By then the
festa
had lost the little steam it had. It was dusk, and candles were lit all around the square, but the evening breeze picked up and in a few minutes put them all out.

Next day, the pro-government daily
Il Monitore
said it was “not surprising the huge crowds that used to fill the square during important festivities” in the days of the old regime chose to stay home this time, given “the secret machinations” of a few patricians and “other enemies of freedom.”
¹⁵
The municipalists, as the pro-French Venetians were called, naively believed they were building a new, independent state that would, in time, join the Cisalpine Republic that Bonaparte was setting up from his headquarters in Milan. But Bonaparte had little interest in Venice’s future. It was a city to despoil before it was turned over to the Austrians. The last thing he wanted was to have Francophile Venetians knocking at his door at a time when he was preparing to sit down with the Austrian plenipotentiaries to finalise the peace treaty.

Venice struggled to survive through the summer of 1797. The government was saddled with a staggering debt inherited from the old Republic. The treasury was empty, trade was dead and the central bank—the Banco Giro—was emptied to pay the first instalment of the three million lire owed to the French. A forced loan was levied on patricians. It was followed by another emergency loan on property, industry and commerce (gold and silver objects were confiscated when there was no more cash). But the economy continued to languish. Venice could no longer count on income from the mainland. The westernmost cities of the old Republic joined Bonaparte’s Cisalpine Republic, while closer cities, like Padua, Vicenza, Treviso and Udine, proclaimed their independence from Venice and set up their own provisional governments. As the weeks wore on in an atmosphere of uncertainty and increasing poverty, Venice’s territory continued to shrink. French troops took over Corfu and the Ionian islands, the last vestiges of the Venetian Empire in the Mediterranean. Even more devastating to morale in the city was the Austrian occupation of the Istrian peninsula and the Dalmatian coast. The government reacted with disbelief at Bonaparte’s acquiescence to this Austrian land-grab. But of course Vienna was merely accelerating a move that had already been agreed to in the secret clauses of Leoben. By the end of the summer all that remained to the Venetians was their city and the coastline areas along the lagoon. The once sprawling Republic had been picked to the bone.

Inside the city, the organised looting proceeded apace. By early September over twenty masterpieces had been selected and packed and were on their way to the Louvre, including eight paintings by Veronese, three by Titian and two by Tintoretto. As many as 470 invaluable manuscripts documenting Venice’s early history were shipped. The Sasanian lion of Saint Mark, which had greeted visitors for centuries from the top of the marble column in the
piazzetta,
was pulled down and crated and sent off to Paris. French engineers erected large scaffolding in front of the basilica and lifted down the four heavy bronze horses the Venetians had brought back from Constantinople in 1204.

The sentiment of the majority of the population turned sharply against the French. Venetians had not welcomed the occupying force, and the truculent arrogance the soldiers often displayed made relations steadily worse. Only a diminishing band of municipalists still clung to the illusion that a Venetian state could survive. They repeatedly invited Bonaparte to visit Venice, but he was wise enough to decline, choosing instead to send his wife, Joséphine, in the hope of softening opposition at least as long as French troops remained there.

The art of welcoming foreign dignitaries had been for centuries a matter of national pride with the Venetians, but the coffers were empty and the planning of Joséphine’s five-day visit was in the hands of well-meaning but inexperienced officials. Still, the city managed to put on one, last, performance. When her small cortège arrived in the Basin of Saint Mark, Joséphine waved to the crowd assembled in the
piazzetta.
A warm applause broke out. Cheerful gondoliers cried out their welcome. Dozens of colourful Venetian boats escorted her in a spontaneous parade up the Grand Canal to her headquarters, at Palazzo Pisani Moretta, directly across from Palazzo Mocenigo. “She is neither pretty nor young,” noted the punctilious
Il Monitore.
“But she is very sweet and attractive and courteous.”
¹⁶
What she lacked in good looks, Joséphine made up in style and flair and Creole charm. Her natural indolence, her accessible, unpretentious manner, put everyone at ease, including the nervous officials fussing about her.

The next morning, after a tour of Saint Mark’s, Joséphine paid a visit to the former Palace of the Doges, renamed the National Palace. In the very hall where the assembly of patricians had once sat, the government was noisily discussing the need to encourage Venetian poets to compose Pindaric odes to reignite the patriotic fervour of the citizenry. Joséphine made her entrance and all rose and applauded as the speaker introduced her as “the wife of our liberator, Bonaparte.” She looked lovely as she took a seat in an armchair that was carried forth and placed between the public and the government benches. Her simple white dress brought out her tawny complexion. A light green stole covered her shoulders, and a pretty bonnet gave her an extra touch of Parisian chic. She sat for no more than five minutes, but it was long enough for her husband’s supporters to introduce a resolution bestowing on him the title of “Bonaparte the Italian,” as the great Scipio had been named the African after conquering Carthage.

General Berthier, Joséphine’s escort in Venice, approached Alvise, whom he had met in Brescia the previous year, with a special request: Joséphine wanted very much to see one of Venice’s famous regattas down the Grand Canal before leaving, and she wondered whether one might not be squeezed into her programme. Alvise objected that there was not enough time and not enough money to organise a proper regatta. Nevertheless, as soon as Joséphine had left the hall, he rushed to inform his colleagues of her wish. Some replied mockingly that Alvise should pay for the regatta himself, but after a short debate, the majority decided it was Venice’s patriotic duty to organise a reduced version of the traditional regatta. Alvise caught up with Joséphine at Palazzo Pisani Moretta. Alas, she had just received a dispatch from Bonaparte asking her to cut her visit short by a day and join him at Passariano, in Friuli, where the French and Austrian delegations were gathering to draft a peace treaty. Could the regatta not be postponed until her next visit, she asked, when she was sure to be in Venice with her husband? Alvise rushed back to the National Palace, where he found the excitement over the regatta was now unstoppable. He had only two days to organise it.

General Baraguey d’Hilliers and his wife,
la Générale,
hosted a ball at Palazzo Pisani. It was a glamorous affair such as Venice had not seen in a long time. Many Venetians were reassured by Joséphine’s presence in their midst. It strengthened the illusion that they had found a friend and an ally who would go back to her husband and press the case for Venice. As the wine flowed, a hopeful mood spread among the guests dancing under the great Murano chandeliers. Nobody complained much about the urgent need to find another 4,000 silver ducats to foot the bill for Baraguey d’Hilliers’s glittering extravaganza.

That evening Lucia had an opportunity to spend some time with Joséphine. It is easy to imagine how she found her natural charm seductive even as she sensed the vulnerable soul behind it. As far as we know, the two of them got along from the start. It was only a brief encounter during a crowded evening, yet the seeds were planted for a friendship that was to blossom many years later, in Paris, at the height of the Empire.

For the next two days, Alvise worked non-stop to organise the regatta, while Joséphine visited the languishing Arsenale, paid homage to the French fleet anchored off the Lido and sat through a gruesome play at La Fenice about the life of Orso Ipato, Venice’s fourth doge, who had his eyes carved out by an angry mob. When she stepped out of the opera house, red, white and blue paper lanterns glowed at every window along the waterways, and as she crossed the Giudecca Canal to attend a dinner for a hundred guests in the garden of the Pisani summer
palazzo,
the city behind her was swathed in flickering French tricolour.

On her last day in Venice Joséphine woke up to see fifty gymnasts performing spectacular acrobatic feats beneath her window. It was the prelude to the regatta. Soon a colourful armada of different vessels, representing Venice’s naval history, glided down the Grand Canal in a dazzling parade as the crowd cheered from the side canals and the windows of the palaces lined along the great waterway. Behind the scenes, General Berthier made last-minute arrangements for Joséphine’s journey to Passariano. She was now in a hurry to reach her husband. Before the regatta was over, she slipped away with her party and crossed the lagoon to the mainland.