I shall say a few words respecting the revolt of the Venetian States, which, in consequence of the difference of political opinions, has been viewed in very contradictory lights.

The last days of Venice were approaching, and a storm had been brewing for more than a year.  About the beginning of April 1797 the threatening symptoms of a general insurrection appeared.  The quarrel commenced when the Austrians entered Peschiera, and some pretext was also afforded by the reception given to Monsieur, afterwards Louis XVIII.  It was certain that Venice had made military preparations during the siege of Mantua in 1796.  The interests of the aristocracy outweighed the political considerations in our favour.  On, the 7th of June 1796 General Bonaparte wrote thus to the Executive Directory: 

The Senate of Venice lately sent two judges of their Council here to ascertain definitively how things stand.  I repeated my complaints.  I spoke to them about the reception given to Monsieur.  Should it be your plan to extract five or six millions from Venice, I have expressly prepared this sort of rupture for you.  If your intentions be more decided, I think this ground of quarrel ought to be kept up.  Let me know what you mean to do, and wait till the favourable moment, which I shall seize according to circumstances; for we must not have to do with all the world at once.

The Directory answered that the moment was not favourable; that it was first necessary to take Mantua, and give Wurmser a sound beating.  However, towards the end of the year 1796 the Directory began to give more credit to the sincerity of the professions of neutrality made on the part of Venice.  It was resolved, therefore, to be content with obtaining money and supplies for the army, and to refrain from violating the neutrality.  The Directory had not then in reserve, like Bonaparte, the idea of making the dismemberment of Venice serve as a compensation for such of the Austrian possessions as the French Republic might retain.

In 1797 the expected favourable moment had arrived.  The knell of Venice was rung; and Bonaparte thus wrote to the Directory on the 30th of April:  “I am convinced that the only course to be now taken is to destroy this ferocious and sanguinary Government.”  On the 3d of May, writing from Palma Nuova, he says:  “I see nothing that can be done but to obliterate the Venetian name from the face of the globe.”

Towards the end of March 1797 the Government of Venice was in a desperate state.  Ottolini, the Podesta of Bergamo, an instrument of tyranny in the hands of the State inquisitors, then harassed the people of Bergamo and Brescia, who, after the reduction of Mantua, wished to be separated from Venice.  He drew up, to be sent to the Senate, a long report respecting the plans of separation, founded on information given him by a Roman advocate, named Marcelin Serpini; who pretended to have gleaned the facts he communicated