XXII. 1797. from the Venetian territory. This fabrication, which CHAP. was written at Milan, by a person in the French interest, of the name of Salvador, was extensively diffused by Landrieux, the secret agent of the French general; and though it bore such absurdity on its face as might have detected the forgery, yet, in the agitated state of the country, a spark was sufficient to fire the train; and hostilities, from the excited condition of their minds, would, in all probability, have been commenced, even without this unworthy device. The mountaineers and the inhabitants of the Alpine valleys flew to arms, large bodies of the peasantry collected together, and every thing was 1 Jom. x. prepared for the irruption of a considerable force 126. Bot. into the plains of Brescia.1 1 ii. 211, 215. Th. ix. 116. Confid. de insurrection spreads im 1st April. The democrats in Brescia, instigated by French agents, resolved instantly to commence hostilities. Corresp. A body of 1200 men issued from their gates, accom- Nap. iv. panied by four pieces of cannon, served by French 289. gunners, to attack Salo, a fortified town, occupied The counterby Venetians, on the western bank of the lake of Guarda. The expedition reached the town, and mensely. was about to take possession of it, when they were suddenly attacked and routed by a body of mountaineers, who made prisoners 200 Poles, of the legion of Dombrowski, and so completely surprised the French, that they narrowly escaped the same fate. This success contributed immensely to excite the movements; large bodies of peasants issued from the valleys, and soon 10,000 armed men appeared before the gates of Brescia. The inhabitants, how- 4th April. ever, prepared for their defence, and soon a severe cannonade commenced on both sides. General Kilmaine, upon this, collected a body of 1500 men, chiefly Poles, under General Lahoz, attacked and 6th April. СНАР. defeated the mountaineers, and drove them back to their mountains; they were soon after followed by the French flotilla and land forces, and Salo was 126, 129. taken and sacked.1 1797. 1 Jom. x. Bot. ii. 200. Th. ix. 90. the Senate in regard to France. The intelligence of these events excited the utContinued most indignation at Venice. The part taken by indecision of the French troops in supporting the revolt could no longer be concealed; and the advance of Laudon, at the same time, in Tyrol, produced such apparently well-founded hopes of the approaching downfall of the Republicans, that nothing but the vicinity of Victor's corps prevented the senate from openly declaring against the French. He spread, in the vicinity of Verona, the most extravagant intelligence; that he was advancing at the head of 60,000 men; that Napoleon had been defeated in the Noric Alps, and that the junction of the corps in his rear would speedily compel him to surrender. These reports excited the most vehement agitation at Verona, where the patrician party, from their proximity to the revolutionary cities, were in imminent danger, and a popular insurrection might hourly be expected. The government, however, deeming it too hazardous to come to an open rupture with the French, continued their temporizing policy; they even agreed to give the million a-month which the French general demanded, and contented themselves with redoubling the vigilance of the police, and ar112. Nap resting such of their own subjects as were most susBot. ii. 211. pected of seditious practices." 2 Th. ix. iv. 139. Meanwhile, Napoleon having received intelligence of the steps which the Venetian government had adopted to crush the insurrection in their dominions, and the check which the Republican troops, in aiding them, had received at Salo, affected the most violent indignation. Having already concluded his armis XXII. 1797. tice at Leoben, and agreed to abandon the whole con- CHAP. tinental possessions of Venice to Austria, he foresaw in these events the means of satisfying the avidity of the Imperialists, and procuring advantageous terms for the Republic, at the expense of the helpless state of Venice. He therefore sent his aid-de-camp, 10th April. Junot, with a menacing letter to the senate, in which Affected anhe threatened them with the whole weight of the leon. ger of NapoRepublican vengeance, if they did not instantly liberate the Polish and French prisoners, surrender to him the authors of the hostilities, and disband all their armaments. Junot was received by the senate, to whom he read the thundering letter of 15th April. Napoleon; but they prevailed on him to suspend his threats, and despatched two senators to the Republican headquarters, to endeavour to bring mat- 217, 218. ters to an accommodation.' 1 Bot. ii. Th. ix. 113. Verona. But the very day after the deputies set out from Venice for Leoben, an explosion took place on the Massacre at Adige, which gave the French general too fair a pretext to break off the negotiation. The levy en masse of the peasants, to the number of 20,000, had assembled in the neighbourhood of Verona; 3000 Venetian troops had been sent into that town by the senate, and the near approach of the Austrians from the Tyrol promised effectual support. The tocsin 17th April. sounded; the people flew to arms, and put to death in cold blood 400 wounded French in the hospitals. Indignant at these atrocious cruelties, General Balland, who commanded the French garrison in the forts, fired on the city with red-hot balls. Conflagrations soon broke out in several quarters, and although various attempts at accommodation were made, they were all rendered abortive by the furious passions of the multitude. The cannonade conti XXII. 1797. 1 Jom. X. CHAP. nued on both sides, the forts were closely invested, the city in many parts was in flames, the French already began to feel the pressure of hunger, and the 132, 135. garrison of Fort Chiusa, which capitulated from want Balland and of provisions, was inhumanly put to death, to revenge Kelmaine's the ravages of the bombardment.1 Th. ix. 120. account. Corresp. de Which is speedily sup the French troops. But the hour of retribution was at hand; and a terrible reverse awaited the sanguinary excesses of 124, 167. the Venetian insurrection. The day after hostilities 18th April. commenced, the intelligence of the armistice was received, and the Austrian troops retired into the Tyrol; two days after the columns of General Chapressed by bran appeared round the town, and invested its walls; while, to complete their misfortunes, on the 23d, the accounts of the signature of the preliminaries of Leoben arrived. The multitude immediately passed from the highest exaltation to the deepest dejection; and they now sought only to deprecate the wrath of the conqueror, to whom they had given 28th April. so much cause of hostility. Submission was immediately made; the authors of the cruelties shot; a general disarming effected among the peasantry; and a contribution of 1,100,000 francs levied on the 141. Jom. city. The plains were speedily covered with French Bot. ii. 232. troops; the united divisions of Victor and Kilmaine Report. occupied successively Vicenza and Padua, and soon Contid. Cor- the French standards were discovered from the 155, 167. steeples of Venice on the shores of their Lagunae.2 Nap. iv. x. 140. Kilmaine's resp. iii. These excesses were the work of popular passion, equally sanguinary and inconstant, when not rightly directed, in all ages and countries; but an event of the same kind stained the last days of the Venetian 23d April. government itself. A French vessel of four guns approached the entrance of the harbour of Lido, in -opposition to a rule of the Venetian senate, to which XXII. 1797. Massacre at all nations, not excepting the English themselves, CHAP. were in use to yield obedience. A cannonade ensued between the batteries on shore and the vessel, and the French ship having been captured by the Lido. galleys on the station, the captain and four of the crew were massacred, and eleven wounded. Imme. ' Bot. ii. diately after a decree of the senate publicly applaud- Jom. x.139. ed this cruel and unnecessary act.' These sanguinary proceedings sufficiently verify the old observation, that pusillanimity and cruelty are allied to each other; and that none are so truly humane as the brave and the free. They do not in the slightest degree palliate the treachery of the French, or the rapacity of the Imperialists, the former of which had instigated the revolt of the Venetian democrats, and signed the partition of Venice before either of these events took place; * but they go far to diminish the regret which otherwise would be felt at the suc The massacre at Verona took place on the 17th April, that at Lido on the 23d, while the preliminaries of Leoben, which assigned the whole of the continental Venetian territories to Austria, were agreed to on the 9th, at Judemberg, while the formal treaty was drawn up on the 16th, and signed on the 18th, in Carinthia, before even the first of these events had occurred. Napoleon has given the clearest proof of his sense of the unjustifiable nature of this aggression, by having, in his memoirs on this subject, entirely kept out of view the dates, and made it appear as if his menacing letter by Junot to the senate was the consequence of the massacre of April 17, at Verona, when, in fact, it was dated the 9th April, at Judemberg, at a time when, so far from the Venetian government having given any cause of complaint to the French, they had only suffered aggressions at their hands, in the assistance openly lent to the democratic rebels, and the attack by the Republican forces on Salo. Conflicts, indeed, had taken place between the Venetian insurgents, stimulated by the French, and the aristocratic adherents; but the government had committed no act of hostility, the monthly supplies were in a course of regular payment, and the French ambassador was still at Venice.-See Napoleon, iv. 142. By not attending minutely to this matter, Sir W. Scott has totally misrepresented the transactions which led to the fall of Venice, and drawn them in far too favourable colours for the hero, whose life he has so ably delineated.—See SCOTT's Napoleon, iii. 315, 316. 1 242, 243. |