DANIEL MANLN.* A GOOD translation of a book, which every
one who wishes to know what Italians are, as well as what Italy is, should read. We propose, instead of criticizing it, to revive from its narrative our readers' recollection of the greatest and least fortunate of modern Italian patriots.
Daniel Manin was born in 1807, the son of a Jewish family, which a century before had embraced Christianity, and taken the name of their protectors, the great patrician house which gave its last Doge to Venice. A weak and dreamy child, with tender lungs, who complained, as a young man, that he was always weary, young Mania was trained by his father to a profound love of liberty, and devoted himself as a student to jurisprudence and philology, with such success that the University admitted him at seventeen Doctor of Laws. Married early to a woman who seems to have been worthy of him, he settled, in 1830, at Maestra, as an advocate, in that deep, but endurable poverty so common among the educated classes of the Continent. With nothing to do, for the bar, like every other free institution, was crushed by the leaden despotism of the monarch who told the Universities that he "wanted obedient subjects, not learned men," his real occupation was to think out, with the hard strong thought which was the speciality of his enthusiastic character, the future of Venice and of Italy. His first essay in politics was in 1831, when he called his countrymen to revolt in a proclamation, of which, fortunately for himself, the Austrians did not discover the author. The project failed, and for seven years more Manin meditated at home, emerging in 1838 as promoter of the. Italian Railway Association. The ostensible object of this body was to direct the overland route through Italy instead of through Austria, and its discus- sion taught the shrewd Lombard aristocracy that their interests were inseparably combined with those of Venice. It was, of course, soon dissolved by arbitrary decree, but it had done its work, and among other achievements had given the educated classes in Venice supreme confidence in the advocate Manin. In the Scientific Congress which assembled in Venice in 1847, he took a decided lead as a political economist, and on 21st December be signed, alone, a petition praying the Venetian Central Congrega- tion, an illusory representative body established by decree, to do its duty. The congregation adopted the petition, and Count Palffy of course threw the petitioner into a dungeon. The arrest made him a hero, the entire population defiled before his prison with every head uncovered, and a strange incident revealed the depth of the spirit he had aroused. For ages two factions had existed among the populace of Venice, the Nicoletti and Castellani—factions embittered by annual fights and constantly recurring bloodshed. The hate of the German had now, • Daniel Manin and Venice in 1818-41 By Henri Martin. Translated by Charles MarteL With an Introduction by Law Batt, Q.C., M.P. Two Vols. alarlee J. Skeet.
however, absorbed every other feeling, and the gondoliers, repre- sentatives of the two factions, secretly attended the Church of the Madonna della Salute, and there vowed in the presence of the Host to abandon their ancient contest. From that day to this the faction words have never been heard, for Venetians can hate only the Austrians. When, on the 16th February, news arrived that Vienna had made concessions, Manin, who had been acquitted by the judges, but again arrested by the Imperial police, was at last set free to commence the career which in a few months summed up the excitements of a century.
He stepped out of prison master of Venice, and, as he remained through the rest of his career, its conscious master. Though a man of singular humility, he had realized his own powers, and felt that amidst all the wild enthusiasm of a Venetian populace, the organizing faculty remained with himself alone. Defying the governor, who, irresolute or unable to act, kept granting half concessions, he ordered the people to arm and form a civic guard. The people armed, and Manin calmly assuming the post he never afterwards quitted, issued his first address, "Let only those who will implicitly obey me remain with me." All remained, and on the following day Manin attacked the arsenal, turned the guns on the weak Croat regiments, and when they yielded, coerced as much by the spirit of the revolution as by force, went calmly to bed, tortured, as he was for most of his life, by inflammation of the kidneys. The municipality organized a provisional government, which received the Austrian capitulation, and left out Manin's name, an omission at which he only smiled. A single night con- vinced the municipality that the choice before them was Manin or anarchy (they lost in that single night the Austrian fleet, which, lying at rola, and manned by Italians, was only awaiting the signal to join Venice), and in the evening they repaired to his bedside, and by noon, amidst unanimous acclamation, Mania was President of the Republic of San Marco.
For nine months he remained the presiding spirit of the Republic, occupied with two great tasks—the maintenance of in- ternal order, and the disposal of the power of Venice so as to aid the general cause of Italy. For, like so many among his countrymen, Manin possessed, with all his intense enthusiasm, an English mind. He looked always towards the practical, and, from first to last, commissioned his agents to accept any arrange- ment for Venice except a return to Austrian rule. Fusion with Lombardy, fusion with Piedmont, fusion with Italy, inde- pendence under French protection, independence under English protection, independence without protection ; he acceded to any plan, provided it would leave Venice free of the barbarian. Meanwhile decree after decree organized Venice on modern ideas, guaranteed all foreigners, swept away all religious disabilities—a. Jew was appointed Minister of Finance—established equality before the law, and finally, on 24th March, removed all distinctions between the city and her territorial possessions, and summoned a free Parliament for Venetia. All Italy, excited by the prospect at once of deliverance and freedom, rose. The King of Piedmont poured into Lombardy, the Tuscans thronged on the Po, even the foul despotism at Naples was compelled to promise a fleet. It was then that the real power of Mania first became manifest beyond Venice. Alone among his people he was not intoxicated by success, he had measured the resources of Austria, and he announced, from the first, that France must be called in to meet the German power. Had he been seconded by Piedmont, 1859 might have been realized eleven years earlier ; but Charles Albert dreaded France. He had divined, or actually heard, that to be King of Italy he must sacrifice Savoy, and with no Cavour to stimulate him, he shrunk from the necessary transaction, and declared that "God had placed Italy in a position which made her suffice to herself alone." Italy paid for that self-confidence by Novara. and eleven years more of slavery. The events of the campaign, Durando's slow march, the junction of Nugent and Radetsky, and their descent from the Tyrol, the treason of the Neapolitan Bour- bon, and the capitulation of Durand°, are only too well known. July found Mania reduced to the city of Venice alone.
There, however, he was absolute ; for he had beaten down the only element of danger—the rage of the populace against the foreigner. The Austrians had ill, treated some sailors, and the Venetian mob clamoured for the seizure of a steamer of the Aus- trian Lloyds. Manin rejected their prayer, defied their clamour, and told them that he would resist their will, "if it cost him his life." Next day a haughty decree informed the citizens that they had constitutional means of dismissing the President, but reminded them that "We have not assumed the cares, labours, and fearful responsibility of Government to sacrifice the dignity we maintained in our private life and in difficult times. Citizens, take your con- fidence, or, rather, that in those who govern you, from us at once, but respect yourselves ! " And having so asserted his power, Manin, in the teeth of his own followers, voted for the fusion of Italy, which, as a monarchy, left a President of Venice no place. The vote was never carried out. On the 11th August Charles Albert, defeated by the enemy and distrusted by the Mazzinians, evacuated Venetian territory. In this emergency, with Venice in revolt and all hope lest, Martin pledged his life for the honour of the Piedmontese commissioners, summoned the Assembly to meet and create a new Government, and announced, in words which instantly tranquillized Venice, "Till they meet, I will govern." The Assembly made him dictator, and even in that hour Mania's strong head induced him to dictate one condition—the Assembly should dismiss him by a vote, but, till dismissed, no man should interfere with his action. The intervention of England and France, from which he had hoped much, failed, and Mania announced his resolution not to accept dishonourable terms. The people aided him to the utmost, voted funds large for Venice, and filled up the army till their dictator had the control of twenty thousand regulars, fourteen thousand of whom were Venetians, besides four legions of National Guard. Still Mania knew well his weakness, and just at this moment Charles Albert wrote to offer him the portfolio of foreign affairs. "I think it my duty,' replied Manin, though deeply touched, "to be in Venice at present." He continued organizing, and so completely reformed the finances, that with this army and 4,500 sailors he still in four months and a half spent only 580,000/. These results charmed the Assembly ; but some discussion on Manin's position impressed the citizens with the idea that the dictator was to be shackled. They attacked the Assembly in the interest of their favourite ; but they had mistaken his character. Mania desired order, not merely power, and, calling the Civic Guard, he placed himself at its head, defended the gates of the Assembly sword in hand, and in an indignant decree told the people that "they had sullied the renown they had acquired." No wonder that "The faith of Venice in this man,' says a foreign witness, was inconceivable, complete, and absolute. (' He had never deceived, never abused it,' adds the narrator.) . . . The people seemed to attribute to him omni- potence and omniscience, and believed him capable of guarding Venice from every peril, and of rescuing her from every calami,t6-
On the 23rd of March 1849, Novara was fouglre 'and lost, and the Venetian Assembly, rising as Italians when called upon have so often risen to the height of their great cause, an- swered the announcement of rain by this decree.
"'The Assembly of Reprsentatives of the State of Venice, In the name of God and the People, Unanimously Decree : Venice will resist the Austrian AT ANY COST. For this purpose the President Manin is invested with unlimited powers.' "
"On the 11th April Venice was blockaded, and on the 24th August the city submitted to a capitulation. Four months had the heroic Italian defied with a single city the whole power of the Austrian monarchy. Ninety thousand projectiles had been thrown into Venice ; the city had eaten its provisions. Men are wanting,' says Manin to carry and bury the dead.
The conflagrations caused by bombs and red-hot balls increase day by day, hour by hour. All the devotion, all the indefatigable ac- tivity of the firemen, scarcely suffice to extinguish the flames. Our ammunition is exhausted; we have no materials for making gun- powder. The Civic Guard is in some degree disorganized by the population of one part of the city being thrown upon the other. From without we have no hope!"
The capitulation was signed to save Venice from extinction, and then, a born monarch to the last, Mania descended into the streets, charged the desperate fanatics who were trying to burn the city, and restored order at the bayonet's point.
Mania, of course, was excepted from the amnesty granted to most Venetians, the Assembly voted its President, who had rejected salary, a purse of £800, lest the honour of Venice should be stained by his starvation, and he repaired in a French vessel to Paris.
There he lived ten years, teaching languages, dying all the while of a heart-disease, increased by the necessity of walking, lest the cost of cabs should reduce the little luxuries necessary for a a sick daughter ; and in 1859, almost his last public act being to denounce Marxini's theory that assassination was justifiable, he died, leaving a name which Venetians will forget when they have forgotten Venice, and the world when Caesarian has demoralized its last man.
The Austrian Government officially forbad Venetians to listen to a mass for Manin's soul.
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