We arrived in this fashion at the mouth of the stream; there we had to wait nearly half an hour until the locks were opened, which had to be done gradually and with precaution, as otherwise the waters of the Brenta, retained in their canal, where they were much above the level of the sea, gushing out suddenly and with a violent fall, would have carried off and submerged our gondolas. Leaving the Brenta, we found ourselves in the gulf, and in the distance we saw the marvellous city of Venice rising from the midst of the sea. Barques, gondolas, and even ships of considerable tonnage, laden with all the well-to-do population and all the mariners of Venice in holiday costumes, were coming from every side, passing, repassing, and crossing each other in all directions with extreme skill and rapidity.

The Emperor was standing in the stern of the péote, and as each gondola passed close beside his own, he would respond to the acclamations and shouts of Long live Napoleon Emperor and King! by one of those profound salutes which he made with so much grace and dignity, taking off his hat without bending his head and letting it descend his body almost to the knees.

Escorted by this innumerable flotilla, of which the péote of the city seemed to be the admiral's ship, His Majesty at last entered the Grand Canal, bordered on both sides by the façades of superb palaces, all of whose windows were hung with flags and filled with spectators. The Emperor landed in front of the palace of the procurators, where he was received by a deputation of senators and Venetian nobles. He stopped for an instant on the Piazza San Marco, went through several inside streets and chose the site of a garden, the plan of which was presented to him by the city architect, and which was executed in one season. It was a new sight for the Venetians, these trees planted in open grounds with lawns and hedges.

The complete absence of verdure and vegetation, and the silence which reigns in the streets of Venice, where neither the tread of a horse nor the sound of a carriage is ever heard, horses and carriages being absolutely unknown things in this wholly maritime city, must give it a dull and solitary appearance in ordinary times; but this dulness had entirely vanished during His Majesty's stay.

The Viceroy and the grand marshal were present that evening at the Emperor's couches, and while undressing him I heard a part of their conversation, which turned entirely upon the government of Venice before the reunion of this republic to the French empire. His Majesty did most of the talking; Prince Eugène and Marshal Duroc contented themselves with interjecting a word or two now and again, as if to give the Emperor a new text and prevent him from putting too abrupt an end to his discourse, a real discourse in fact, since His Majesty engrossed the whole conversation and left the others very little to say. That was rather a habit of his; but no one thought of complaining of it, because his ideas were generally interesting, novel, and cleverly expressed. His Majesty did not chat, as has been justly remarked in the diary which I have included in my Memoirs; but he talked with an inexpressible charm, and in that respect I think that the author of the diary at Aix-la-Chapelle has not done sufficient justice to the Emperor.

At the couchee of which I was just speaking, His Majesty spoke of the former State of Venice, and from what he said about it I learned more concerning the subject than I could have done from the best book. The Viceroy having observed that some patricians regretted the ancient liberty, the Emperor exclaimed: "Liberty! nonsense! There was no longer any liberty at Venice, and there never had been any except for some noble families who oppressed the remainder of the population. Liberty with the Council of Ten! liberty with State inquisitors! liberty with the lion denunciators, and the dungeons, and the leads of Venice!" Marshal Duroc having remarked that toward the end this severe régime had been mollified: "Yes, without doubt," replied the Emperor, "the lion of Saint Mark had grown old; he had neither teeth nor claws. Venice was no longer anything but the shadow of itself, and its last doge found that he ascended in the scale when he became a senator of the French empire." Seeing that this idea made the Viceroy smile, His Majesty added gravely: "I am not jesting, gentlemen. A Roman senator piqued himself on being more than a king; a French senator is at least the equal of a doge. I wish foreigners to accustom themselves to the greatest respect toward the constituted bodies of the empire, and even to treat the simple title of French citizen with high consideration. I will manage so that this shall come about. Good night, Eugène. Duroc, see that the reception to-morrow be properly conducted. Adieu, gentlemen. Constant, you may come back for my candle in ten minutes; I feel inclined to go to sleep. One is rocked like a baby in these gondolas."

The next day, after receiving the homage of the Venetian authorities, His Majesty went to the arsenal. It is an immense edifice, fortified with a care that ought to render it impregnable. The aspect of the interior is singular, on account of several small islands, joined together by bridges. The magazines and different buildings of the fortress thus seem to be floating on the surface of the water. The entry from the ground side, by which we were introduced, is by a very beautiful marble bridge, with columns and statues. On the side of the sea, there are many rocks and sand banks near the arsenal, the location of which is indicated by long piles. We were told that in war-time these piles were withdrawn, so that any of the enemy's vessels that were imprudent enough to get entangled in these reefs were tolerably certain to be wrecked. The arsenal could formerly equip eighty thousand men, infantry and cavalry, independently of a large number of complete armaments for ships of war.

The arsenal is surrounded by high towers from which there is an extensive view in all directions. On the highest of these towers, situated in the middle of the edifice, and also on all the others, there are day and night sentinels who signalize the arrival of vessels, which they can see at a great distance. Nothing can be more magnificent than the shipyards. Two thousand men could work there at their ease. The sails are made by women over whom other women of mature age exercise an active supervision.

The Emperor spent very little time in looking at the Bucentaur, the name given to the superb vessel on which the Doge of Venice celebrated his nuptials with the sea. A Venetian can never behold without profound chagrin this old monument of the former puissance of his country. I and several other members of the Emperor's suite were accompanied by an old mariner who had tears in his eyes as he told us in bad French that the last time he had seen the marriage of the doge with the Adriatic Sea was in 1796, a year before the taking of Venice. This man told us that he was then in the service of the last doge of the republic, Seigneur Louis Monini; that the following year (1797) the French entered Venice on Ascension day, the usual period for this ceremony, and that since then the sea had remained a widow. Our honest mariner gave us a most touching eulogy of his former master, who, according to him, had never been able to bring himself to swear obedience to the Austrians, and had fainted while delivering them the keys of the city.

The gondoliers are at once servants, errand-bearers, confidants, and fellow-adventurers of the person who employs them. Nothing equals the courage, fidelity, and gaiety of these good sailors. They fearlessly expose themselves to storms at sea in their fragile gondolas, and their skill is so great that they circulate in the narrowest canals with incredible swiftness, crossing, passing, and repassing each other without ever touching.

I was able to judge for myself of the adroitness of these hardy mariners, the very next day after our visit to the arsenal. His Majesty having had himself taken across the lagoons to the fortified port of Mala-Mocco, on his return the gondoliers gave him the spectacle of a boat-race and a sham fight on the water. There was a representation given by order at the grand theatre the same day, and the whole city was illuminated. For that matter, there seem always to be public festivities and a general illumination at Venice. It being usual to employ the greater part of the night in business or pleasure, the streets are as noisy and as full of people at midnight as those of Paris at four o'clock in the afternoon. The shops, especially in the Piazza San Marco, are lighted up in a dazzling manner, and a crowd throngs the little ornamented pavilions in which coffee, ices, and refreshments of every sort are sold.

The Emperor did not adopt the Venetian mode of life. He retired at the same hours as when in Paris, and when he did not spend the day in working with his ministers, he sailed in a gondola in the lagoons or visited the principal establishments and public edifices of Venice. It was thus that I saw, in His Majesty's train, the church of Saint Mark and the former palace of the doge.

The church of Saint Mark has five entrances, superbly decorated with marble columns. The doors are of bronze with sculptures. Above the middle door were formerly the four famous bronze horses which the Emperor sent to Paris to adorn the arch of triumph on the Place du Carrousel. The tower is separated from the church by a small place, from the middle of which it springs up to a height of more than three hundred feet. It is ascended by means of a very convenient slope without any steps; and on arriving at the summit one beholds magnificent views on every side: Venice with its innumerable islands laden with palaces, churches, and manufactories; and, prolonging it far into the sea, an immense dike, sixty feet in width, several fathoms high, and built of huge cut stones. This gigantic work surrounds Venice and all its islands, and defends it against the irruptions of the sea.

The Venetians profess an altogether special admiration for the clock established in a tower to which it gives its name. The mechanism indicates the march of the sun and the moon through the twelve signs of the zodiac. One sees, in a niche above the face, a very well-gilded statue of the Virgin, the size of life. We were told that on certain holy days of every year, each stroke of the bell brought out two angels holding trumpets, and followed by three figures which prostrated themselves at the feet of the Virgin Mary. I saw nothing of the kind, but only two large black figures striking the hours on the bell with iron clubs.

The Doge's Palace has a very sombre aspect, and the prisons, which are separated from it only by a narrow canal, render this aspect gloomier still.

At Venice one finds merchants of every nation. Jews and Greeks are very numerous. Roustan, who understood the language of the latter, was sought for by the most notable among them. The heads of a Greek family came one day to invite him to visit them; their house was situated on one of the islands surrounding Venice. Roustan acquainted me with his desire to return their call, and I was enchanted with his proposition that I should accompany him. On reaching their island we were received by our Greeks, who were rich merchants, as if we had been old acquaintances. The sort of parlor into which they led us was not merely scrupulously clean, but also extremely elegant. A large divan encircled the room, the floor of which was covered with artistically braided mats. Our hosts were six in number, and were associated in the same branch of commerce. I should have been somewhat bored if one of them, who spoke French, had not conversed with me. The others talked in their own tongue with Roustan. They offered us coffee, fruits, sherbets, and pipes. I have never liked smoking, and knowing, besides, the pronounced disgust of the Emperor for odors in general, and that of tobacco in particular, I declined the pipe, and expressed the fear that my clothes might betray my having been with smokers. I thought I noticed that this nicety on my part lowered me considerably in the estimation of our hosts. However, when we left them they were very urgent that we should repeat our visit. It was impossible for us to accept, as the sojourn of the Emperor was not to be prolonged.

On my return, the Emperor asked if I had been around the city, what I thought about it, whether I had been in several houses; in a word, what I had seen worthy of notice. I answered as well as I could, and, as His Majesty was just then in a chatty mood, I told him about our excursion and our visit to the Greek family. The Emperor asked me what these Greeks thought of him. "Sire," I replied, "the one who spoke French seemed to be a man entirely devoted to Your Majesty. He spoke to me of the hope which he and all his brethren entertained that the Emperor of the French, who had gone to combat the Mamelukes, in Egypt, might also some day make himself the liberator of Greece."

"Ah! Mr. Constant," said the Emperor, pinching me sharply, "so you meddle with politics!" "Pardon me, Sire, I am only repeating what I have heard. It is not astonishing that all the oppressed count on the assistance of Your Majesty. These poor Greeks seem to love their country passionately, and they detest the Turks above all things." — "Very well, very well," said His Majesty, "but I have to take care of my own affairs first of all. Constant," pursued His Majesty, suddenly changing the topic of the conversation with which he deigned to honor me, "what have you to say about the figures of the fair Greeks? How many have you seen that are worthy to be the models of Canova and David?" I felt obliged to respond to His Majesty that what had chiefly induced me to accept Roustan's proposition was the hope of seeing some of these much-vaunted beauties, and that I had been cruelly disappointed by not getting even a glimpse of a woman. Upon this naïve avowal, the Emperor, who had not expected it, burst into a laugh, caught hold of my ear again, and called me a libertine. "Then you did not know, monsieur le drôle, that your good friends, the Greeks, have adopted the customs of those Turks whom they so cordially detest, and, like them, shut up their wives and daughters so that they never make their appearance before bad fellows such as you?"

Although the Grecian dames of Venice were watched pretty closely by their husbands, yet they are neither cloistered nor penned up in a seraglio like Turkish women. During our stay in Venice, a great personage spoke to His Majesty about a young and beautiful Greek who was an enthusiastic admirer of the Emperor of the French. This lady keenly desired the honor of being received by His Majesty in the privacy of his apartments. Although closely watched by a jealous husband, she found means to send a letter to the Emperor in which she described the whole extent of her love and admiration. This letter, written with true passion and wild enthusiasm, inspired His Majesty with a wish to see and know the author of it; but it was necessary to use precautions. The Emperor was not the man to make use of his power to steal a woman from her husband; still, all the pains that were taken in the conduct of this affair were not sufficient to prevent the husband from suspecting the projects of his wife; hence, before it was possible for her to see the Emperor, she was taken far away from Venice, and her prudent spouse took pains to hide his flight, and every trace of it. When this disappearance was announced to the Emperor, he laughed and said: "There is an old fool who thinks himself a match for his destiny." His Majesty formed no liaison while we were in Venice.

Before leaving this city, the Emperor issued a decree which was received with inexpressible enthusiasm, and which increased the regret caused by his departure to the inhabitants of Venice. The department of the Adriatic, of which Venice was the capital, was enlarged on all the maritime coasts, from the town of Aquila to that of Adria. The decree also ordained that the harbor should be repaired, the canals be made deeper and cleaned, the great wall of Palestrina, of which I have spoken already, and the jetties in front of it, continued and kept in repair; that a canal of communication should be dug between the arsenal of Venice and the passage of Mala-Mocca; and finally, that this passage itself should be cleared and made deep enough to permit vessels of the line carrying seventy-four guns to enter and depart.

Other articles concerned the benevolent establishments, the administration of which was confided to a sort of council, called the congregation of charity, and the cession to the city by the royal domain of the island of Saint Christopher as a general cemetery; for, until then, there had prevailed in Venice, as elsewhere throughout Italy, the pernicious custom of burying the dead in the churches. Finally, the decree ordered the adoption of a new method of lighting the beautiful Piazza San Marco, the construction of new quays, passages, etc.

When we left Venice, the Emperor was conducted to the shore by a mass of people at least as numerous as that which had greeted his arrival. Treviso, Udine, Mantua, rivalled each other in their eagerness to receive His Majesty in a befitting manner. King Joseph had left the Emperor to return to Naples; Prince Murat and the Viceroy accompanied His Majesty.

The Emperor stopped only two or three days at Milan and continued his journey. On reaching the plain of Marengo, he found there the magistrates and people of Alexandria, who were awaiting him, and who received him by the light of innumerable torches. We merely passed through Turin. December 30 we climbed Mont Cenis once more, and in the evening of January 1, we arrived at the Tuileries.