While Bonaparte was at Passeriano, Josephine went to spend a few days at Venice, which had been occupied by a French garrison since May 16. Its old aristocracy had been overthrown, and a lawyer, Dandolo, had put himself at the head of the provisional government. Bergamo, Brescia, Padua, Vicenza, Bassano, Udine, were all separate republics. Everywhere were adopted the principles of the French Revolution; the Italian national colors were adopted, a confederation was formed.

The proud Venetian Republic hoped to preserve its independence, but it was not without a secret uneasiness as to the negotiations at Passeriano. Its former attitude of haughtiness and hostility to Bonaparte and the French had become one of obsequiousness and entreaty. It besought the young conqueror to visit it, and promised him the most unheard of ovations; but Bonaparte had already decided to abandon Venice to Austria in return for Mantua and the Adige, and he did not dare to show himself in a city which his plans were about to ruin. He clearly perceived that after the ultra-democratic proclamations which he had written, after the solemn sending to Paris of busts of Junius and Marcus Brutus, he would appear very inconsistent if he were to give over a republic, bound hand and foot, to an emperor. If he had gone to receive on the square of Saint Mark the applause which the expiring city promised him, he would seem to have played a traitor's part.

His spirit of dissimulation did not go so far as that; but Josephine, who was not admitted to diplomatic secrets, might go to the Venetian festivities as to a simple pleasure party. She was averse to leaving Italy without seeing this wonderful and famous city, and she got her husband's leave to go there under the escort of Marmont. She appeared at the City of the Doges, with all her usual grace, kindliness, and amiability. "To see her so affable and so smiling towards every class of society, no one would have suspected the dark plans which her husband was weaving against the independence of the noble and illustrious Republic. Doubtless Venice was at fault: its neutrality had been neither prudent nor loyal; the Veronese Vespers had been a grave crime. But the punishment was terrible, and what would be the feelings of the patriots who were soon to see that most terrible sight, the annihilation of their country?"

Yet Venice was still rejoicing; the credulous populace still nourished illusions; so easy is it to believe what one hopes. The nobility of the mainland, with its long-lived jealousy of the aristocracy of the lagoons, saw with pleasure the fall of the oligarchy which it detested. The middle classes, fancying themselves emancipated, noisily welcomed the triumph of French ideas. As to the rabble, they thought no more of the past, and scarcely considered the future; delighted with the festivities, they gave themselves up to the pleasures awaiting them with true southern enthusiasm.

The Venetians, with the best will in the world, being unable to prostrate themselves before the man who held their fate in his hands, spared no pains at the reception of his wife, to devise what could gratify and flatter her. Madame Bonaparte spent four days at Venice; it was one perpetual magical enchantment. The City of the Doges is most beautiful with its wealth of marble palaces and magnificent monuments, its pictures and frescoes, the masterpieces of Tintoretto, Titian, the two Palmas, Paul Veronese, with its Piazza of Saint Mark, its wonderful cathedral, its Ducal Palace, rich in treasures and memories!

The visitor is overwhelmed with admiration and respect when he enters the celebrated Greater Council Chamber, which in its wonderful pictures condenses the history of the Queen of the Adriatic just as the grand gallery of Versailles records the history of the Sun King. Here one sees popes come to seek shelter in Venice, emperors entreating its alliance, accepting its mediation; one sees its fleets conquering islands, its armies scaling ramparts, its victories on land and sea, and in the middle of the ceiling, the Republic, in the form of a radiant woman, smiling at the display of its wealth and grandeur; then there is the series of the portraits of all the doges, from the first, Luca Anafeste, elected in 697, to the last, Manini, who, eleven hundred years afterwards, had just been deposed by the French!

A singular omen: the portrait of the Doge Manini filled the only place left empty at the time of his election: there was no room for a successor. But the Venetians did not trouble themselves about this gloomy sign; they had but one care -- to give Madame Bonaparte a grand reception.

The first day the Grand Canal was in gala dress. A hundred and fifty thousand spectators filled the windows and roofs that overlooked it. There were boat-races; five or six long and narrow boats, propelled by but one man, contended over the course which ran from the beginning of the canal to the Rialto. The second day, a trip in the boats; all the gondolas were covered with flowers and garlands. The third day, another excursion, but by night, when palaces, houses, gondolas, were all illuminated: it was like a sea of flame; fireworks of many colors were reflected in the water, and the evening closed with a ball in the Ducal Palace.

"If one reflects," says Marmont, "of the advantages which its situation gives to Venice, of the beauty of its architecture, of the endless movement of crowded boats, which make it look like a moving city, if one thinks of the efforts such circumstances called forth in this imaginative people with their exquisite taste and unbounded love of pleasure, one may conjecture the spectacle that was offered us. It was not Venice, the seat of power, but Venice, the house of beauty and pleasure."

No, it was no longer Venice in its power, "Venice," as Chateaubriand says, "the wife of the Adriatic and Queen of the Seas, the Venice which gave emperors to Constantinople and kings to Cyprus, princes to Dalmatia, to the Peloponnesus, to Crete, the Venice which humiliated the Ceasars of Germany; the Venice of which monarchs esteemed it an honor to be the citizens; the Venice which, republican in the midst of feudal Europe, served as a buckler to Christianity; the Venice, planter of lions, whose doges were scholars, whose merchants, knights; the Venice which brought back from Greece conquered turbans or recovered masterpieces; the Venice which triumphed by its splendor, its courtesans, and its arts, as well as by its great men; Venice, at once Corinth, Athens, and Carthage, adorning its head with rostral crowns and diadems of flowers."

No, it was no longer the former Venice. A profound decadence was visible in these festivities given in honor of Madame Bonaparte. What had become of that freest of cities which had maintained its independence since its foundation in the fifth century? Where were the famous bronze horses that had pawed the air above the entrance of Saint Mark's? They had been sent to Paris as part of the spoils. And the famous lion, the lion of the holy patron of Venice? He had suffered the same fate. The great saint whose relies are in the church founded in the beginning of the ninth century by the liberality of Justinian Participazio no longer protected the city which had so trusted in him. Ah, what had become of her who

looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers

In youth she was all glory, a new Tyre,
Her very byword sprung from victory,
The 'Planter of the Lion,' which through fire
And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea;
Though making many slaves, herself still free,
And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite.
Witness Troy's rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye
Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight!
For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight."

-- Childe Harold, Canto IV.

It is all over; no more shall be seen the wedding of the doges and the Adriatic! And where is the Bucentaur, the famous barge resembling Cleopatra's, the huge carved boat, with golden rigging? Where is the time when the Doge put forth from Venice in the Bucentaur, and, proceeding in triumph to the passage of the Lido, cast into the sea a consecrated ring, uttering these sacramental words: "Desponsamus te, mare, in signum veri perpetuique dominii,"

"Sea, we marry you in sign of true and everlasting dominion!"

The ambassadors of every power, even the Pope's nuncio, seemed by their presence to recognize the validity of this mystical marriage.

What has become of the Bucentaur?

At first it had been intended to send it to France in tow of some frigate; but for fear lest it should be captured on the way by some English cruiser, it was decided to burn it. Also there was burned that famous Book of Gold, in which patricians, even monarchs themselves, were proud to have their names inscribed. Venice, instead of rejoicing, had better have put on sackcloth, and the flowers with which it decked itself in its folly would have been better thrown on the coffin of its independence and glory! Its cries of joy seemed sounds of irony. The song of the gondoliers should have been a funeral wail. The authority which presided over its festivities was not a majestic and formidable doge, but a foreigner, a creole woman, who must have been surprised to appear amid the lagoons like a real queen.