Lucia - Andrea Di Robilant [99]
Bonaparte was back in northern Italy and his arrival, Paolina wrote, had everyone saying that the next war would be fought there. If war did break out and borders closed down, how would they stay in touch? Lucia reassured Paolina, mostly to reassure herself:
What is being said in Brescia about the break-out of hostilities in the near future is being said here in Vienna as well—all one sees at the theatre, these days, are plays with military themes. But I am convinced these fears are groundless and we shall have peace for several more years. The recent wars brought too much suffering for anyone to contemplate a renewal of hostilities. No one is about to close down the mountain passes, no one is about to declare war.37
This was wishful thinking on the part of Lucia, for Bonaparte had been stoking the fires of a new European crisis for some time. The Treaty of Amiens in 1802 had brought relative peace to continental Europe, and for two years the first consul had focused most of his energies on domestic affairs, modernising public administration, reforming the judicial system, building up public education and founding the Banque de France. His restlessness abroad, however, remained unabated, and he never lost a chance to push France’s borders and exasperate his neighbours, as if peace were merely a continuation of war by other means. In 1804 the British government, fed up with Bonaparte’s peacetime expansionism, financed a plot to assassinate him. When the plot failed, Bonaparte declared himself hereditary emperor, ostensibly to discourage further attempts on his life. He was crowned on 2 December 1805 in Paris by Pius VII. Emperor Napoleon set about creating an imperial aristocracy, lavishing high-sounding titles of nobility on members of his family and his most loyal generals. The Cisalpine Republic in northern Italy, the puppet-state over which he presided, became the Kingdom of Italy, and he was crowned in Milan on 26 May 1805. His stepson, Prince Eugène de Beauharnais, became the kingdom’s viceroy.
The bulk of the French army was still assembled on the coast near Boulogne, apparently poised for an offensive against Britain. But Napoleon’s presence in Italy for the coronation ceremony suggested he had indeed changed his mind in favour of another continental war—certainly that was what everyone talked about: a new war in northern Italy.
Lucia received fresh news from Antonio Canova, the artist, who arrived in Vienna in mid June to install the mausoleum commissioned by Albert of Saxony-Teschen for his wife, the Archduchess Christina. Lucia had known him for many years and she had him over for lunch, eager to hear the latest from Italy. It was the season of white asparagus, the large, fleshy variety that was so popular with visitors, and Lucia went to the market expressly that morning to buy some. On the way home, she stopped to purchase a special vinegar aux fines herbes with which to dress it, and two bottles of white wine from the Rhineland. After singing the praise of the trusty white asparagus, the great sculptor turned to the subject of war. He described the gloom that was spreading back home, the memories of Napoleon’s past campaigns being still so vivid among the Italians. Turning to the mausoleum he was working on, a large monument in the shape of a pyramid costing 8,000 florins, he said the expense of bringing the artwork across the Alps in such uncertain times was so high it had put a serious dent in the sum he was taking