At the end of the transept is a tomb built against the wall, with lions to guard it, and a statue of S. George high above.  The tomb is that of Daniele Manin, and since we are here I cannot avoid an historical digression, for this man stands for the rise of the present Venice.  When Lodovico Manin, the last Doge, came to the throne, in 1788, Venice was, of course, no longer the great power that she had been; but at any rate she was Venice, the capital of a republic with the grandest and noblest traditions.  She had even just given one more proof of her sea power by her defeat of the pirates of Algiers.  But her position in Europe had disappeared and a terrible glow was beginning to tinge the northern sky—­none other than that of the French Revolution, from which was to emerge a Man of Destiny whose short sharp way with the map of Europe must disturb the life of frivolity and ease which the Venetians contrived still to live.

Then came Napoleon’s Italian campaign and his defeat of Lombardy.  Venice resisted; but such resistance was merely a matter of time:  the force was all-conquering.  Two events precipitated her fate.  One was the massacre of the French colony in Verona after that city had been vanquished; another was the attack on a French vessel cruising in Venetian waters on the watch for Austrian men-of-war.  The Lido fort fired on her and killed her commander, Langier.  It was then that Napoleon declared his intention of being a second Attila to the city of the sea.  He followed up his threat with a fleet; but very little force was needed, for Doge Manin gave way almost instantly.  The capitulation was indeed more than complete; the Venetians not only gave in but grovelled.  The words “Pax tibi, Marce, Evangelista meus” on the lion’s book on S. Mark facade were changed to “Rights of Man and of Citizenship,” and Napoleon was thanked in a profuse epistle for providing Venice with glorious liberty.  Various riots of course accompanied this renunciation of centuries of noble tradition, and under the Tree of Liberty in the Piazza the Ducal insignia and the Libro d’Oro were burned.  The tricolour flew from the three flagstaffs, and the two columns in the Piazzetta were covered with inscriptions praising the French.  This was in May, 1797.

So much for Venice under Manin, Lodovico.  The way is now paved for Manin, Daniele, who was no relation, but a poor Jewish boy to whom a Manin had stood as godfather.  Daniele was born in 1804.  In 1805 the Peace of Pressburg was signed, and Venice, which had passed to Austria in 1798, was taken from Austria and united to Napoleon’s Italian kingdom, with Eugene Beauharnais, the Emperor’s brother-in-law, as ruler under the title Prince of Venice.  In 1807 Napoleon visited the city and at once decreed a number of improvements on his own practical sensible lines.  He laid out the Giardini Pubblici; he examined the ports and improved them; he revised the laws.  But not even Napoleon could be everywhere at once or succeed in everything, and in 1813 Austria took advantage of his other troubles to try and recapture the Queen of the Adriatic by force, and when the general Napoleonic collapse came the restitution was formally made, Venice and Lombardy becoming again Austrian and the brother of Francis I their ruler.