Paul Morand: Venices

Perhaps the St Mark’s horses were nostalgic for their journey to Paris in 1798, their farewell to the tearful Venetians, their walk to the quayside and their embarkation aboard the French frigate La Sensible , their arrival at Toulon amidst all the paintings from the Italian campaign, their apotheosis on the Champ-de-Mars, behind the dromedaries and their installation on the Arc du Carrousel, to the accompaniment of formal addresses:

Et si de tes palais ils décorent le faîte

C’est par droit de vertu, non par droit de conquête .4

Anchored in front of San Giorgio Maggiore, the bulk of a British aircraft-carrier distorted the proportions, concealing the Lido which lay on the horizon, like a sleeping crocodile on the surface of the water. From on high I scanned the play of the currents, varying in shade accord ing to the salt content, where the antique green intersected the dirty green, the colour of excavated jade. Waterways marked out with stakes that are sunk into the mud, and slumbering dykes through which only the pilots and the old fishermen know how to find their way.

Goethe and Taine have described this view, from this very point; they saw those tables from Quadri’s café dotted in front of the Procuraties. Up there, I thought of Byron’s remark: “Nature alone does not lie”,… except for Venice, which does make nature lie and surpasses her; only man has dared put this challenge to the physical and architectural laws; what other creature — apart from the swallow building its nest — can make a soft substance hard? Who would have dared slosh about in this mud?

“The object is never as dark as its reflection,” painters say; only the reflection of Venice in our memories is lighter than the reality.

Who would attempt to build her again?

1965

DISCOVERED IN Cassini’s bookshop in the Via 22 Marzo the Memoirs of the last doge, Ludovico Manin: “10 May 1797; the French are at Mestre, any resistance is useless; the Serenissima arranged to bring in Dalmatian troops, but not in sufficient number. Without any bounty, Venice runs the risk of pillaging and fire.” “Tonight,” adds the doge, “we shall not sleep in our beds.” Poor Manin, whose graphic coat of arms bore an Adonis asleep beneath a tree…

The Council of Ten decided to let the consul, Villetard, know that the government of Venice would welcome the French troops “in a friendly manner”. The words overdid it; let the Venetians keep their friendship for them selves, Villetard replied to the doge.

On the 12th of May, the Slavic troops re-embarked for Dalmatia from the Giudecca. The French arrived. Would it mean a bloodbath? No. Manin shed tears as nobody has shed them since Diderot. Seven days later, there was a masked ball at the Fenice; both French and Venetian guards at the doors. On the 22nd, a Te Deum at St Mark’s. Contributions to the war were raised; hostages; the Librod’oro delle nobiltà veneziana was burnt. Another party at the Fenice, not very successful; how was it possible not to be frightened when you knew that Bonaparte, a few leagues away from here, had exclaimed: “I shall be the Attila Venice”?…5 General Baraguay, who was staying at Palazzo Pisani, held a reception; co-operation was languida . A committee from the Directoire arrived and searched through the libraries, taking away five hundred rare books and manuscripts and thirty of the best paintings.

On the 14th of August, Masséna moved into the Palazzo Gradenigo. Families that owned more than one gondola had to relinquish them to the occupying forces, together with the gondoliers, who were expected to provide food for themselves; the conscripts fled. Nevertheless, five theatres remained open. Sérurier arrived, with a large general staff; the Arsenal was emptied; they set fire to the Bucintoro . The end of the Serenissima ( Memoirs of L. Manin, Venice, 1886).

Mallet du Pan, at the time, Molmenti, later on, and Guy Dumas, in our own time, have persuaded us that Venice was corrupt and ridden with vice; she was no more so than the rest of Europe, this Serenissima that had endured for thirteen centuries, and whose disappearance was lamented by all her people.

Whether it was 1797 or 1945, any more the soldiers of the Directoire than the New Zealand armoured car troops under the command of the English General Freyberg, Venice has scarcely put up fierce resistance; she wanted to avoid pillage and fire; the names of the conquering generals are forgotten in a few months, treaties turn yellow after ten years, and empires will never be other than empires; the duty of a unique city is to survive.6

APRIL 196…

THE HEIGHTS and the depths of Venice, where human life fluctuated for so long between two extremes, between piombi and pozzi , between the drains up above, and the wells beneath; a town of poor fishermen and a golden city; along the same canal passed both the Wagner of the duet from Tristan and the man of the funebral gondola, his own. Non nobis, Domine …

1908–1970

THE THREE AGES OF MAN

HOW MANY YEARS, social circles, fashions, pledges and hopes have I seen pass by beneath these Procuraties, among these after-dinner strollers… The soldiers from the time of the Triple Alliance carrying their sabres that were never drawn, under their arms; their bulging riding britches and their loose-fitting boots, Tor di Quinto style, with wide regimental stripes, yellow, blue and cerise, and their huge kepis and their plumes, wearing a monocle and a curled-up Wilhelm II moustache; the Venetian women in their black shawls (and the noise of their clogs on the pavement, now nothing but a memory); the beautiful foreign women, with their feathered boas and their high collars drawn taut with stays, holding their dress in one hand, a tortoise-shell lorgnette or a fan in the other.

Next came the Allied armies in their green and bronze, or khaki uniforms, and their medals.

Then the blackshirts, the Balbo-like beards, the riding britches once more, but this time worn down to the knees, in the knickerbocker style, like the Guards; and still those boots, now very tight-fitting; the rhythmic march, the banners, the stacks of weapons and the commemorative crowns, followed by the ministers in gaiters (in morning coats and bowler hats); more ladies, sportswomen wearing eye-shades in the style of Suzanne Lenglen, or balillas … Workers’ marches… In about 1935, the Mussolini style gave way to uniforms in the Hitler mould: white tunics over tobacco-coloured trousers.

Pursuing History at a trot, it is now the Liberation, with American jackets everywhere and high-laced military boots; armbands bearing the letters MP, cowboy shirts and open collars, Kodak cameras with telephoto lens, and Lucky Strikes in their holsters.

And now here we are today: weeping willow hairstyles, bell-bottoms worn over oilskins, dresses cut from old curtains that drag along among the rubbish, sandals, bare feet, a sleeping-bag over the shoulder, the pilgrimages to the source. It’s a time of letting go, of “let’s crash down here, no point in going any further”.

I shall bring this procession of ghosts through St Mark’s Square to a halt, not being a Carpaccio; nor a Saint-Simon, who nevertheless wrote: “These trifles are scarcely ever included in the Memoirs ; however, they give an accurate idea of almost everything one looks for in them.”

There’s a dispute between the Venice city council and the military authorities which, like their equivalents in every country, do not want to relinquish anything. Venice is still scattered with islands or islets which are no longer of any strategic importance: Santo Spirito, Lazaretto Vecchio, La Celestia, San Giacomo in Palude, La Certosa… Those old monasteries, those fortresses that have nothing to defend… The Italian empire is long past and the Office of Tourism requires hotels and more hotels.