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By Root 756 0

of 1801. He had not seen Lucia in twenty-eight months: he knew nothing of what she had gone through during his absence, and he knew nothing of little Massimiliano. For over two years he had zigzagged up and down central Europe, from Dresden to Berlin and all the way to Hamburg, and on to Stockholm, then back down to Brunswick, east to Prague and finally to Vienna. He had never made it to London, but then he had probably never intended to reach England. His itinerary, traceable thanks to brief entries in his diary, looks at first sight like the trail of an aimless wanderer. But closer examination reveals Alvise’s design: to make his way gradually to Vienna, gaining familiarity with the political institutions and the sprawling administration of the Habsburg Empire, and collecting useful contacts and letters of recommendation along the way. At the end of his journey he came to a halt in Prague, where he lobbied the Austrian government for a passport to Vienna—evidently the capital was still off-limits to him because of his supposed French sympathies. He bribed an official—he paid a certain Herr Jonek the princely sum of 200 sequins—and after a two-month-long wait, he finally got his passport. “Vienna becomes my fatherland,” he wrote in his diary, before heading down to Italy. “I shall buy a house in Austria and bring my family here and settle for good.”17

During Alvise’s long absence, the map of northern Italy had been redrawn in such a way that his estates were now separated by a border. Bonaparte had escaped from Egypt aboard a frigate in the summer of 1799, returning to Paris as a saviour. The corrupt and unpopular Directoire had lost control of the government. Everywhere the Grande Armée was in retreat. The country was in turmoil. Bonaparte became first consul after the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire (9 November), and established a de facto military dictatorship. Furious at the way his predecessors had lost “his” rich Italian provinces, he led a new campaign against Austria, driving his men through the Saint Bernard Pass and crushing the enemy in the battle of Marengo on 14 June 1800. Three days later he was back in Milan, the capital of his beleaguered Cisalpine Republic. With the Treaty of Lunéville, he enlarged the Republic to include the river Adige and the city of Verona. As a result, the western Mocenigo estates in the province of Verona were now under French rule, while the eastern estates—Valli Mocenighe, Villabona, Este and Molinato—remained part of the Habsburg Empire.

Alvise decided to sell the Mocenigo estates that were under French rule to raise the necessary cash for a substantial purchase in Austria. However, the legal complications soon confounded him. He abandoned the idea and left the Cisalpine Republic in a huff. The French-controlled territory was in “an appalling state,” he wrote in his diary. Bonaparte was “a greatly misunderstood man of evil” who merely wanted “to drain as much money as possible” out of the country. “[Money] is his only goal, his only ambition…Everything is in a state of anarchy…He destroys all local traditions, banishes religion…Nobody is interested in proper administration…Instead of putting roots here, the French merely take advantage of the moment.”18 Alvise showed disdain for the Italians in the Cisalpine Republic who had hitched their wagon to the French army. “There is not an honest man to be found in these local committees set up by the government. All they are interested in is their own personal profit.” They spent only public money to organise festas and to send presents to the French government. “A foreigner travelling through these sad districts in a hurry might draw a different picture,” he conceded. “Feasts and spectacles and cries of mirth and long live liberty are everywhere. But who are the actors on this scene? Only thoughtless young men, hiding behind their mighty sabres…”19

Alvise crossed back into the Habsburg-controlled Venetian territories and put his hopes in the rapidly changing tides of history. “Farewell, my lands,” he concluded melodramatically. “If all