The Rape Of Venice

Chapter 26

The Rape of Venice

An Indian Princess,' Boneparte repeated. 'That would certainly be an experience. But surely there is not such a woman here in Milan, or I would have heard of her?': 'No. She lives in Venice. I thought perhaps when you next go on one of your tours of inspection…'

'Yes, I could arrange to spend a night there. Tell me more of her. Would she prove readily complaisant?'

'That I cannot guarantee,' Roger smiled. 'But I should have thought, mon General, that you would have found women as easy to conquer as enemy fortresses. I can only vouch for it that she is in her early twenties, has beauty and a noble carriage, speaks Italian and French fluently, and hates her husband.'

'Presumably, then, she has had numerous lovers.'

'I doubt that. Her husband is a Venetian ex-​Senator and he keeps her like a bird in a gilded cage. The poor lady has had no more chance to succumb to temptation than if she had continued to live as the inmate of a seraglio in her native India.'

'Pst!' Boneparte exclaimed with annoyance. 'That makes her ten times more alluring, yet rules her out for me. Why arouse my interest when you must know well enough that it means the sort of adventure which can so easily end in scandal and that, for the sake of Madame my wife, I am determined to have no scandal attaching to my name.'

'There will be no scandal if you leave the matter to me.'

'How can you be sure of that? Husbands have an uncanny knack of returning unexpectedly when a lover has been introduced into the house.'

"I should get her out of it to sup with you in some place where there was no risk of your being disturbed.'

'Since she is so jealously guarded, even if she were willing, that savours of abduction. Were it discovered that I had connived at the abduction of an ex-​Senator's wife for my pleasure, it would set all Venice by the ears. Policy made it necessary for ms to despoil Venice of all her mainland territories, but I have brought freedom to the people of the city, and they bless me for it. They rely upon me now to maintain their independence, and look on me as their protector. To have raped the Serene Republic politically was one thing. To as good as rape the wife of one of its leading citizens is quite another. Did it become known, I would at once lose their esteem and be accounted a villain.'

Roger shrugged. 'Your fears are needless. I can so arrange matters that there will be no scandal, and am prepared to guarantee that the husband shall be given no grounds for complaint. All you have to do is to give me a chit to Villetard ordering him to carry out my instructions. Only a handful of people need ever know that you have spent the night in Venice and, unless you distrust your personal staff, none of them will afterwards bear word to Madame Boneparte that you supped with the Princess. On that I pledge my head. But, if this little project of mine for providing you with a few hours interesting relaxation from your immense labours has no real appeal to you, let us say no more about it.'

'An Indian Princess,' Boneparte muttered, and he began to walk up and down the room with his hands clasped behind his back. 'An Indian Princess. Yes; well, why not, if you are so certain that the matter can be arranged discreetly? You are prepared to take complete responsibility for that, eh?'

'I am. I'll answer for it with my head,' Roger repeated.

'Very well then. When next I go on a journey which wilt bring me within easy distance of Venice, remind me of it.'

Roger gave a secret sigh of satisfaction. It had required skilful handling to lure the lean, lank-​haired panther, even with such an attractive piece of meat. But he had felt that Boneparte's snobbishness would prove a helpful factor; for, despite his passion for Josephine, he had gone to the length of marrying her only because a union with her, as the widow of a nobleman of the ancien regime, would lift his own social status, and his rise to greatness was still recent enough for a Princess to have, in his mind, a mystic superiority over ordinary women,

That, combined with the way in which anything to do with the East held a special fascination for him, had done the trick.

In these September days there was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement among the small intimate circle surrounding the General-​in-​Chief, as they awaited the resolving of the crisis in Paris which could not be long delayed.

It was one of the great weaknesses in the Constitution of the. Year III that Ministers, instead of being selected from the Five Hundred and the Ancients, were outside them and appointed or dismissed entirely at the will of the Directors. Recently the majorities in the two Chambers had been pressing hard for a reshuffle, in the hope that men of more moderate views might be put into several of the key posts, but their intrigues to that end had weakened instead of strengthened their position. Rewbell, Larevellie and Barras had not only retained the men the Moderates wished to oust, but had seized the opportunity to get rid of Cochon, the Minister of Police, and Petiet, the Minister of War, both of whom were devoted to Carnot, and replace them with old revolutionaries.

At this, the resentment of the Moderates, egged on by the Clichyan Royalists, had become definitely threatening, so Barras had sent to Hoche for armed support. Some months before Jourdan, having long failed to maintain the reputation he had achieved as a General during the early wars of the Revolution, had been relieved of his command of the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, and been replaced by Hoche. On the excuse of moving troops towards Brest in preparation for another attempt against Ireland, Hoche had marched some fifteen thousand men to the neighbourhood of Paris, and a body of his cavalry had overrun the limit beyond which troops, other than the Constitutional Guard, were forbidden to approach the capital. The result was a frightful outcry in the two Chambers, and Carnot and Barthelemy had vigorously protested to their co-​Directors; but as they were in the minority no action was taken against Hoche.

In the meantime, definite evidence had come to light that General Pichegru had sold out to the Royalists. On the French entering Venice, they had arrested a royalist agent named Comte d'Entraigues and seized his papers. Among them was an account of Pichegru's treacherous agreement, while commanding the Army of the Rhine, with two other royalist agents, the Comte de Montgailliard and M. Fauche-​Borel, who were acting on behalf of the Prince de Conde.

When Roger learned of this his heart had, for a moment, stopped beating, for he too had been deeply involved in the affair and had actually bought Pichegru, on Mr. Pitt's behalf, for a million francs in gold, obtained against British Treasury bills from the house of Rothschild in Frankfurt. But fortunately he had known Montgailliard to be a rogue before taking any part in the matter, so had refused to have anything to do with him; and he had swiftly got over his fright on realising that, had any mention been made of him in d'Entraigues's documents, Bourrienne would certainly have known about it and already had him arrested.

Boneparte had sent the papers to Paris, and their contents had since been confirmed from another quarter. It transpired that General Moreau had also known of Pichegru's treacherous dealings with the Prince de Conde, but out of friendship for his brother General had not reported the matter. But Moreau was a staunch Republican, and now that the Directory was in danger had come to Paris and denounced Pichegru to it. Yet, even so, presumably from fear of Pichegru's arrest proving the signal for a general rising against them, they had so far taken no action against him.

Thus matters stood at the moment, and everyone at Monte-​bello was anxiously waiting to see if Pichegru, possibly supported by Carnot, would launch a counter-​revolution, and, if so, whether Barras and Co, supported by Hoche and Augereau, would succeed in suppressing it.

Roger had never met Pierre Augereau, but he had heard a great deal about him. He was the son of a working mason, and a typical gamin of the Paris gutters. As a young footman, then as a waiter, he had been dismissed from both posts for seducing young women, then he had gone into the army and soon become the best swordsman in the Royal cavalry. The number of his fellow N.C.O.s that he had seriously wounded or killed in duels was legendary; and when a young officer struck him with his cane, he had promptly killed him too, which necessitated his bolting to Switzerland on a stolen horse.

From there, as a traveller in watches, he had gone to Constantinople and on to Odessa where, finding a war in progress, he had enlisted in the Russian Army. Not liking the Russians, he had deserted, worked his way via Poland to Prussia and enlisted in the army of Frederick the Great. Not liking the Prussians either, he had deserted again and, the penalty being death, had protected himself from capture by taking sixty other troopers with him; they had fought their way over the frontier into Saxony.

For a while he had earned his living as a dancing-​master, then drifted to Athens, whence he had eloped with a beautiful Greek girl to Lisbon. There, the French Revolution having broken out, his violent advocacy of revolutionary principles had led the Portuguese Government to put him in prison; but, with the aid of a French merchant captain, he had got back to France, where he had enlisted in a volunteer regiment and fought the Whites in La Vendee with such ruthless ferocity that he had soon been elected Chef de Bataillon. By '93 he had been made a Divisional Commander.

He was now forty years of age, a huge hawk-​nosed brute of a man, licentious, foul-​mouthed, quarrelsome; but a magnificent soldier. His division was the best cared for and the most reliable in the Army of Italy. It was always where it was wanted, he had a marvellous flair for timing its attacks and led them with complete disregard for personal danger.

He had moral courage, too, and, although he had become a loyal admirer of Boneparte, was not afraid to stand up to him. In fact, on the one occasion during the campaign when the little Corsican had lost his nerve, or at least appeared to have done so, it was Augereau who had taken charge and pulled him through.

That had been at Castiglione. With his usual daring he had placed himself between the three Austrian armies commanded by Generals Würmser, Quosdanovich and Davidovich, but one of his own Generals, Valette, had practically thrown away a key position, thus rendering the situation of the French army extremely precarious. This had sent Boneparte into such a transport of fury that, apart from reducing the wretched Valette to the ranks, his mind had seemed to lose the faculty of forming any decision. At a night conference of Generals he had talked vaguely of a retreat to the Adda. Augereau had violently opposed retreat and eventually stamped out of the meeting in a passion. Next morning another conference was called and the argument recommenced. This time, on Augereau's again pressing for a vigorous attack, it was Boneparte who had walked out, simply remarking, 'Well, I wash my hands of it, and I am going away.' The astonished circle were stricken dumb, except for Augereau, who shouted after him, 'If you go, who is to command?' The reply, called back over Boneparte's shoulder, was 'You.

Augereau had promptly given battle, leading the first charge himself. Soon afterwards Boneparte had resumed the direction of operations, but Augereau had also delivered the final stroke that had routed the Austrians; so it was undoubtedly his victory. Nevertheless, it was the opinion of some people that Boneparte's apparent temporary mental collapse was simply a cunning ruse, and that the wily Corsican, finding himself in a position which threatened to mar his unbroken record of victories, had deliberately left the decision, either to fight or retreat, to someone else, so that if things did go wrong he could escape being blamed for it. Having regard to the extraordinary duplicity of Boneparte's character, that was certainly a possibility; but, even so, Roger did not see how by just walking out, a General-​in-​Chief could shrug off his responsibility. The fact remained, too, that Boneparte was most generous in his praise of Augereau, and for years afterwards whenever anyone complained to him about the great swashbuckling gamin, he would reply: 'Ah, but look what he did for us at Castiglione.'

A few weeks after despatching Augereau to Paris, Boneparte had sent Bernadotte after him with some more captured flags; but that was a very different story. Charles Jean Bernadotte was, like Murat, a Gascon, and later as the sovereigns of Naples and Sweden they became known as 'The Gascon Kings'. But Bernadotte, although in appearance another splendid-​looking, large-​nosed swashbuckler, had a subtle and treacherous brain. He was a great flatterer, greatly liked by his troops and junior officers, and always charming to civilians, but universally hated by his brother Generals, and to that feeling Boneparte was no exception.

Bernadotte had won his fame with the army of the Sambre-​et-​Meuse and had expected to succeed Jourdan on his retirement. Instead, the Directory, at last acceding to Boneparte's plea for reinforcements for his final drive into Austria, had ordered Bernadotte to march his division down to Milan. The result had not been a happy one.

The French armies of the North were still practising the old war technique of ponderous march and counter march, with plenty of prolonged periods in between for drill and sprucing themselves up. Bernadotte's division were good fighters when they actually got into a battle, but when they joined the Army of Italy neither they nor their General sought to hide their contempt for the slovenly mobs which had performed such prodigies of valour under Augereau and Massena. The latter were largely ex sans-​culottes, the former moderates, and as soon as the campaign was over open strife broke out between them. Brune, who was temporarily commanding Massena's division, had called on Bernadotte's Chief-​of-​Staff and asked him to forbid the use of the word 'Monsieur' among his officers. The Chief-​of-​Staff had refused and challenged Brune to a duel. Officers and men had taken up their leaders' quarrel with the result that, within twenty-​four hours, fifty men had been killed and three hundred wounded.

Boneparte and Bernadotte had disliked one another on sight, and the former's Chief-​of-​Staff, Berthier, had developed a positive hatred for the handsome, long-​nosed supercilious Gascon. But at least they had good reason to believe him loyal to the Directory; so they had got rid of him by pushing him off to Paris after Augereau.

Couriers came galloping in from Paris night and day, but even with the best speed they could make, their news was over a week old before it got to Montebello. It was therefore not until September 13th that Boneparte and his staff had first particulars of events on 18th of the month in the revolutionary calendar named Fructidor.

This date, by the old reckoning September 4th, 1797, was to rank with 13th Vendemiaire, and later 18th Brumaire, as key dates in the short life of the Directory. The corrupt but courageous Barras, and the brutal but bold Augereau, managed everything between them. The former did not even tell his colleagues Rewbell and Larevelliere what was planned until a few hours before the blow was struck.

Augereau's troops surrounded the two Chambers and demanded the surrender of the Constitutional Guard, a large part of which had been suborned beforehand. When asked by what right he did so, he had grinned, drawn his huge sabre, and declared: 'By that of the sword.'

Next day the Five Hundred and the Ancients were summoned to meet in the Odeon Theatre and the School of Medicine, respectively. Few who were not partisans of the Left dared to do so. To these were put resolutions that Barras and his friends had drafted overnight. The principle of these was the completely arbitrary cancellation of the recent elections in forty-​eight Departments, thus throwing out at one stroke the greater part of the Deputies who represented the moderate views now held by a majority of the people of France.

After this first news of the coup d'etat couriers arrived almost every hour at Montebello bringing further details Some fifty members of the two Chambers, among them Generals Pichegru and Willot and such famous anti-​Terrorists as Boissy d'Anglas, Bourdon of the Oise and Barbe-​Marbois, had been placed under arrest and condemned to transportation; so, too, had the able and honest Director, Barthelemy, to whom, as a diplomat, France owed the withdrawal of Prussia from among her active enemies, Carnot's arrest had also been ordered, but he had taken the precaution of hiding in his bedroom at the Luxembourg a spare key to a small gate in the garden and, warned only just in time by his brother, he had escaped through it.

No one could have been more pleased at this last piece of news that Roger. Although Carnot had been one of Robespierre's colleagues, he had taken no part in the Terror and, as a professional soldier, concerned himself only with the defence of France. He had not only raised, armed and trained her great new armies, but for five years been solely responsible for the strategy by which she had kept her many enemies at bay. He had, too, been in a large part personally responsible for the great republican victory at Wattignies; for, having planned the battle with Jourdan at his field headquarters, he had later, on seeing a wing of the French front break, leapt into the fray, rallied the retreating sans-​culottes and, waving his hat on the end of his cane, himself led them back in a victorious charge. He was a great man in every sense, honourable, generous, courageous, compassionate, and with high ideals for the real betterment of the masses; and Roger regarded him with more respect than he had for any other revolutionary leader.

After a further week or so, to the relief of most people, it became apparent that the Left did not intend to use its triumph to launch a renewal of the Terror. With shocking barbarity the shilly-​shallying Pichegru, the unfortunate Barthelemy, and a number of others were transported in iron cages through France to La Rochelle, before being shipped off to 'la guillo tine sec', as exiles in the fever-​ridden swamps of Cayenne, Apart from this, no acts of tyranny were indulged in and Paris, although trembling, remained quiet. But the laws against émigrés and priests were once more rigidly enforced, the Royalist Clubs were closed, and a heavy censorship was placed upon the press. Merlin of Douai and Francoise de Neuf-​chateau were elected as Directors to replace Carnot and Barthelemy, much to Augereau's annoyance, as he had hoped to become a Director himself; but to console him he was made General-​in-​Chief of the Armies of the Rhine.

News of a further result of the coup d'etat reached Peschiera, on Lake Garda, to which Boneparte had moved at the end of September. The peace negotiations at Lillie had dragged on since July, because Mr. Pitt, although willing to buy peace by giving the French practically everything for which they asked, still refused to give up the Cape of Good Hope. The French were, it is true, demanding its return to the Dutch, but everyone knew that now they dominated Holland so completely it would be turned into a French naval base, and with the French at the Cape it would not be long before they cut Britain's invaluable shipping route to India.

The French Republicans had always regarded Britain as their most deadly enemy and had no desire for peace with her. Now that they had succeeded in crushing the Moderates, who favoured peace, they broke off the negotiations and, on September 17th, Lord Malmesbury had been told in the most cavalier fashion to leave France within twenty-​four hours.

Roger had hated the thought of Britain making such a humiliating peace after all the years of effort, thousands of lives and millions in treasure that she had poured into the war; yet he needed no telling how black her future looked now that, once the Austrian business was settled, she must fight on alone. The only escape from invasion and the annihilation he could see for his country was that, by hook or by crook, she must once more arouse Europe against France and provide her again with enemies on the Continent.

The greatest hope for that lay in the fact that France was still bankrupt. Only the huge indemnities that Boneparte had been extracting from the Italian States had kept her going during the past eighteen months. And Boneparte had altered the whole aspect of the war to one of open aggression and plunder. If that policy was continued, and it must be unless France was to collapse, the next victims would be the small German states on the far side of the Rhine. At that Prussia and Russia would become alarmed and might be drawn in to Britain's assistance. Austria too was very far from being down and out. She now had Dalmatia, with its hardy population of Croat and Slovene fighting men to draw upon, as well as Hungary and her other vast dominions. With such a huge reservoir of manpower, given a few months to recover from the blow

Boneparte had dealt her, she could again put great armies in the field. That, Roger felt, made it all the more imperative that nothing possible should be left undone which would strengthen Austria's hand in launching a new campaign, and his mind turned once more to Venice.

From Bourrienne he had learned the inner history of Boneparte's rape of the Serene Republic. The Austrians had long had trouble in ruling their Flemish subjects so that, now France had a secure hold on Belgium, they were prepared to give up their claim to it, but only provided that they were compensated with equally valuable territory nearer home, Boneparte had already made his plans for forming the Italian Duchies into one or more Republics under French influence so that, as he had written to the Directory, in any future war France would be able to menace the rest of Italy through them; therefore, they could not be given up. But what about the broad fertile lands ruled by the Serenissima'?

There lay Venice: a great fat, golden calf, that had only to be killed and cut up. But Venice had declared her neutrality. She would not even act like a very small bull and put up the sort of token resistance that had served to justify Boneparte's deposing the rulers of the Duchies, and even he could not bring himself to face the opprobrium with which all Europe would have regarded him had he cut the calf's throat while it licked his hand. It had to be made to bite.

On his instructions, his agents had stopped at nothing that might goad the mild beast into a protesting bleat. They had set the nobles of the mainland against those of the city, used the separatist ambitions of minorities and fostered a revolutionary spirit in the mobs of the towns. He had given his brutal soldiery carte blanche to do as they liked while quartered in Venetian territory, and been far more harsh in his exactions and requisitions from this neutral state than in any of the lands he had conquered.

In spite of all this the Serenissima had remained with bended knee; but, outside its control, unceasing deliberate torment had at last aroused sporadic resistance. That had been enough. With sickening hypocrisy the little Corsican had told the Serenissima's envoys, sent to express regret and offer handsome compensation, that he 'could not discuss matters with men whose hands were dripping with blood'.

Even before that the fate of the Serene Republic as a nation had been sealed and. when rumours of his intention had got about, he had temporarily masked his true character as a brigand by throwing out the suggestion that, if Venice would give up her northern provinces to Austria, she should receive as compensation Bologna, Ferrara and the Romagna. But he had not meant one word of it; these ex-​Papal States had already been earmarked by him as part of his new Cispadine Republic.

The 'Easter Vespers', as the massacre of the French in Verona had come to be called, was the fruit of all his efforts, After it he no longer needed to talk of compensation. He had his long desired pretext for declaring war on Venice. The spineless Serenissima collapsed, enabling him to cut chunks of meat from the living body of the calf and chuck them at will to the Austrians.

But the Austrians were greedy, and clever enough to know that France needed peace as badly as they did. Their envoys, M. de Merveldt and the Marquis di Gallo, had shilly-​shallied for months at Montebello putting off the agreement of definite terms while watching events in Paris and hoping for a change of Government that would be to their advantage.

It had not matured. On the contrary, the coup d'etat of 18th Fructidor had settled the Directory in the saddle more firmly than ever. Boneparte's hand was strengthened. He was able to threaten now if matters were not concluded soon he would resume the offensive and, after all, conclude them in Vienna.

The Emperor felt disinclined to call his bluff and Thugut, the Austrian Chancellor, sent his most able diplomat, Count Cobenzl, to enter on really serious negotiations. Early in October, Boneparte, accompanied by his personal staff, moved up to Passeriano, south of Udine, to meet the new Austrian Plenipotentiary. In addition to Venice's territories on the east of the Adriatic, which Austria had already grabbed, he wanted her mainland territories as far west as the river Adige and the city itself. In return Austria was prepared to give up all claim to Belgium, to exchange the city of Mayence for that of Venice and to accept France's boundary as the Rhine. The Directory wanted the boundary but was so strongly averse to giving the Austrians all they wanted that it threatened to order the armies of the Rhine to take the field again.

This possibility of a resumption of hostilities caught Boneparte at an awkward time. The Austrians had cleverly talked away the summer and the idea of waging another winter campaign through the Alps did not appeal to him at all. Moreover he wanted the Austrians out of the war so that he could develop new schemes he had in mind. He therefore decided to ignore the Directory's orders and make the best peace he could get behind their backs.

Venice was clearly the main bone of contention. The Emperor was set on having it, and the Directory were set on incorporating it in the new French controlled Cisalpine Republic. Boneparte, on the contrary, while stripping it to its shirt had all along posed as its protector. He liked the role and, from mixed motives, wished to continue playing it. At times he enjoyed making generous gestures and this was a chance to make one. If, too, he allowed the city to retain its independence, that meant that the thousand-​year-​old Republic would survive; so, although he had reduced it to a puppet state he would, instead of being regarded as her assassin, be hailed as her champion. He had raped Venice, but would save her from murder.

Having got rid of General Clarke, Boneparte ignored the Directory's orders and put his own terms to Count Cobenzl. Berthier, meanwhile, was told to get out the maps and, as a precaution, start planning a new campaign, and was given several officers, Roger among them, to assist him.

The Chief-​of-​Staff was an ugly little man with a head far too big for his body. The splendour of the uniforms he designed for himself could not disguise the ungainliness of his movements, or his enormous red hands with their finger-​nails bitten to the quick. His speech was as awkward as his body and he was incapable of showing natural affability. But, under his frizzy hair, he had a quite exceptional brain.

Not that he was an original thinker and, although he did not lack for courage, on his own he would not have made even a passable General. His forte was his extraordinary capacity for memorising detail. He could at any time give the approximate strength, the position, and the name of the commander, of every unit in the Army of Italy. He was a living card-​index, carrying every sort of information about fortresses, topography, munitions, supplies, hospitals, transport and the enemy. His value to Boneparte was trebled by two other factors: he positively worshipped the General-​in-​Chief and was capable of working swiftly, yet carefully, for far longer hours than any other man could possibly have sustained. At critical times in the campaign he had often gone for several days without sleep and appeared no wit the worse for it.

For some days Roger devilled for him, while he worked out with meticulous care the routes which should be taken by infantry, cavalry, artillery and transport of each division, should it become necessary to resume the war. It was on October 11th that, after a morning session with Berthier, Roger met Boneparte in a corridor, and the little Corsican said to him abruptly: 'You seem to have forgotten your suggestion about my spending a night in Venice, to meet an Indian Princess.'

Roger was very far from having forgotten, but he had felt that, although they were now within a day's ride of Venice, it would be tactless to reopen the matter while this new period of intense activity continued, and he said so.

Boneparte grunted. 'I told you to remind me, so you should have. But I've thought of it more than once. It promises to be an interesting experience. Cobenzl will not receive from the Emperor any reply to my latest proposals for some days; so now is the time. How soon can you arrange it?'

'To manage the matter with discretion I'll need two clear days in Venice,' Roger replied. 'If all is going well, I could get a courier back to you here the day after tomorrow; then, if you go down to Mestre on the fourteenth, I'll report to you there that evening with everything in readiness for you to dine with the lady that night.' Good; see to it, then.'

'Mon General, I will leave at once; but there is one thing I must take with me. I need a line of authority from you to Villetard, instructing him to give me any assistance I may require." Why should you need that?'

'There are such matters as suitable accommodation to arrange. Far too many tongues would wag if I brought the Princess to the French Embassy and you dined with her there, At such short notice…'

'You are right. Come with me. Boneparte took Roger into his cabinet, scribbled the line of authority and, as he handed it over, said: 'No scandal, mind. There is no reason why Madame, my wife, should ever know that I have left here except on a short journey to inspect troops, but I am bound to be recognised at Mestre, and I want no rumours running round among the Venetians that I slipped into the city by night in order to seduce an ex-​Senator's wife.'

'You may rely on me,' Roger declared firmly, and half an hour later he set off with high hopes that, at long last, his chance had come to be revenged on the villainous Malderini.