The life of Napoleon Buonaparte, emperor of the French. By Sir Walter Scott.

LIFE OF NA-POLEON BONAPARTE. 2311
against an enemy, who, notwithstanding Napoleon's before, would have been a signal of death to the
bravado, had not even a single boat. But the pro- individual who had dared to hint at it.
posal, had it been made to an abbess and a convent An English satirist has told us a story of a man
of nuns, could scarce have appeared more extraor- persuaded by an eloquent friend to hang himself,
dinary than it did to these degenerate nobles. Yet in order to preserve his life.* The st(ry of the fall
the sense of shame prevailed; and though trem- of Venice vindicates the boldness of the satire. It
bihing for the consequences of the order which they does not appear that Bonaparte could have gone
issued, the senate directed that the admiral should farther, nay it seems unlikely he would have gone
proceed to action. Immediately after the order was so far, as was now recommended.
received, their deliberations were interrupted by As the friendly advisers had hinted that the utthe thunder of the cannon on either side-the Ve- most speed was necessary, the committee scarce
netian gun-boats pouring their fire on the van of the interposed an interval of three days, between reFrench army, which had begun to arrive at Fusina. ceiving the advice and recommending it to the
To interrupt these ominous sounds, two plenipo- great council; and began in the meanwhile to antentiaries were dispatched to make intercession ticipate the destruction of their government and
with the French general; and to prevent delay, the surrender of their city, by dismantlin.g their fleet
doge himself undertook to report the result. and disbanding their soldiers.
The grand council was convoked on the 1st May, At length the great council assepmbled on the
when the doge, pale in countenance, and discon- 31st May. The doge had commenced a pathetic
certed in demeanour, proposed, as the only means discourse on the extremities to which the country
of safety, the admission of sonme democratic modi- was reduced, when an irregular discharge of firefications into their forms, under the direction of Ge- arms took place under the very windows of the
neral Bonaparte; or, in other words, to lay their council-house. All started up in confusion. Some
institutions at tile feet of the conqueror, to be re- supposed the Sclavonians were plundering the cilimodeled at his pleasure. Of six hundred and ninety zens; some that the lower orders had risen on the
patricians, only twenty-one dissented fiom a vote nobility; others, that the French had entered Vewhich inferred the absolute surrender of their con- nice and were proceeding to sack and pillage it.
stitution. The conditions to be agreed on were The terrified and timid counsellors did not wait to
indeed declared subject to the revision of the coun- inquire what was the real cause of the disturbance,
cil; but this, in the-circumstances, could only be but hurried forward, like sheep, in the path which
consideredasa clause intended to save appearances. had been indicated to them. They hastened to
The surrender must have been regarded as uncon- despoil their ancient government of all authority, to
ditional and total. sign in a manner its sentence of civil death-added
Amidst the dejection and confusion which pos. everything which could render the sacrifice more
sessed the government, some able intriguer (the agreeable to Bonaparte-and separated in confusecretary, it wvas said, of the French ambassador at sion, but under the impression that they had taken
Venice, whose principal had been recalled) con- the best measure in their power for quelling the
trived to induce the Venetian government to commit tumult, by meeting the wishes of the predominant
an act of absolute suicide, so as to spare Bonaparte party. Buttthis was by no means the case. On the
the trouble and small degree of scandal which might contrary, they had the misfortune to find that the
attach to totally destroying the existence of the re- insurrection, of which the firing was the signal, was
public. directed not against the aristocrats, but against those
On the 9th of May, as the committee of the great who proposed the surrender of the national indecouncil were in close deliberation with the doge, pendence. Armed bands shouted, "Long live Saint
two strangers intruded upon those councils, which Marc, and perish foreign domination!" Others inheretofore-such was the jealous severity of the deed there were, who displayed, in opposition,
oligarchy —were like those of supernatural beings, three-coloured banners, with the war-cry of "Lithose who looked on them died. But now, afflic- berty for ever!" The disbanded and mutinous soltion, confusion, and fear, had withdrawn the guards diers mixed among these hostile groups, and threatfiorn these secret and mysterious chambers, and ened the town with fire and pillage.
laid open to the intrusion of strangers those stern Amid this horrible confusion, and while the parties
haunts of a sulspicions oligarchy, where, in other were filing on each other, a provisional government
days, an official or lictor of the government might was hastily named. Boats were dispatched to blring
have been punished with death even for too loud a three thousand French soldiers into the city. These
foot-fall, far Inore for the fatal crime of having heard took possession of the Place of Saint Mlarc, xwhile
more than was designed to come to his knowledge. some of the inhabitants shouted; but the greater
All this was now elded; and without check or re. part, who were probably not the less sensible of the
buke the two strangers were permitted to commu- execrable tyranny of the old aristocracy, saw it
nicate with the senate by writing. Their advice, fell in rournfoid silence, because there fell, along
which had the terms of a command, was, to anti- with the ancient institutions of their country, howcipate the intended reforms of the French —to dis- ever little some of these were to be regretted,
solve the present governmient-throw open their the honour and independence of the state itself:
prisons-disband their Sclavonian soldiers-plant The terms which the French granted, or rather
the tree of liberty on the Place of Saint Marc, and imposed, appeared sufficiently moderate, so far as
to take other popular measures of the same nature,
the least of which, proposed but a few months Dr Arbuthnot, in the History of John Bull.