Merry Marxmas and a red new year.
Note that Lelouch's "analysis" is lifted almost verbatim from John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich's book A History of Venice, the epilogue to be precise.
Ca' Rezzonico exists. I have visited it and done my best to describe it appropriately, though I took the liberty of having the Rezzonico family become extinct some 30 years early. It is, today, a museum for the Venice of the 18th Century and features a stunning gallery of Venetian artists from Renaissance and Baroque.
The Mozart piece I mentioned is the Serenade No. 10 "Gran Partita", which is the piece that makes Antonio Salieri recognise Mozart's genius in the brilliant film and play Amadeus: ""This was no composition by a performing monkey. This was a music I'd never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God.
There was indeed a small, but enthusiastic revolutionary society in Venice. However, it failed to produce anything of worth. At least the fact that they weren't suppressed is powerful evidence against the 18th Century claim that Venice was a police state, which it most certainly was not. Napoleon was astounded, for example, when he demanded the release of political prisoners in 1797 and the Venetian authorities could find none.
Regarding fashion, Cecilia (and her female guests) are wearing clothes in the Directory style (later, the Empire and Regency styles), which actually evolved only around 1795. However, it originated considerably earlier in the revolutionary period, though not yet in forms which could be widely worn. The baring of the breasts had little sexual connotation in these days, less so than that of the shoulder, and dates back to a mistress of Louis IX in the 1500s. Over time, French court fashion fluctuated between reasonably low cleavages and, in some cases in the 18th Century, those completely baring both breasts. The truly revolutionary thing about Cecilia's dress is that simple, flowing white dresses had associations of a) Ancient Rome and b) underwear. The first instance of this is a portrait of Queen Marie-Antoinette of France, a fashion which was soon taken up by all who wished to be risqué, such as Lady Hamilton, the famous stage dancer, courtesan and mistress of Lord Horation Nelson.
All the characters in the salon are based on Code Geass or Akito characters. Olympe de Malkal is a fusion of Leila Malkal and Olympe de Gouges. Mario Cavaradossi and Floria Tosca are characters from Puccini's marvellous opera Tosca. The surname of Mao, Dupole, is adapted from Verdi's La traviata's Baron Douphoul, which should tell you all you need to know.
The reading is an English translation of part of Maximilien Robespierre's 1794 speech "Republic of Virtue".
In case you are interested, I recommend you to read John Julius Cooper, Lord Norwich's "A History of Venice". It is concise, lively and thoroughly enthralling.
The Salon at Ca' Rezzonico
Venice, April 1792
Ever since catching a glimpse at the courtesan Cecilia Cuzzoni at the opening performance of the La Fenice theatre the week before, Lelouch had barely thought about anything else: too mesmerising had that experience been. He could perfectly recall every single detail, from the curve of her breast and the folds of her dress to her gleaming white teeth when she had and the gleam in her amber eyes when she had laughed. Her beauty had struck a chord in him.
For what was beauty to him? The greatest joy he had known to that day was spending time with his sister, watching her, harking her words. Nunnally was – had been – the most beautiful being in the world. That still was so after he had beheld Cecilia Cuzzoni, but the courtesan certainly came closer than anyone else. Her beauty, though, was different. Nunnally's had been plain and, objectively, not as great as he thought it to be. What had made Nunnally the wonder she had been had been her sweet and gentle character and the incomparable love he had felt for her. He alone had been able to fully realise her perfection, and hence to him she had been without equal.
The beauty of Cecilia Cuzzoni, on the other hand, was sterile and distant. He knew her not, knew only her physical beauty. He had watched her enthralled, like a lover of art might watch a painting or a sculpture, like a lover of music might listen to a symphony. He recognised her objective beauty and was absolutely enraptured. But that was it – he loved the façade and not the interior. It might well be that Cecilia Cuzzoni was fickle and shallow, and her profession suggested loose mores; avarice, pride and lust.
But still her physique was exciting and dazzling, and so he longed to see her again.
And thus it came that on the evening of the 25th of April, a Wednesday five days after the outbreak of war between Austria and France, Lelouch and Haliburton stepped out of a gondola in front of the palazzo of Cecilia Cuzzoni.
Ca' Rezzonico had been commissioned by the wealthy patrician Bon family in the mid-17th Century. The head of the family, Filippo Bon, had employed the then-greatest architect of Venice to build the palace in the up-and-coming Baroque style, but had run out of money with only the first of the three-and-a-half story finished. It had taken almost a century for the palazzo to be completed: the rich, but only recently ennobled Rezzonico family had bought the site from the impoverished Bons and continued building it. When a Rezzonico was elected Pope in 1758 – Clement XIII –, the pinnacle of the power and grandeur of the family had come, and with it splendour and luxury.
However, due to infertility and the notorious Venetian custom of marrying only the first son to keep the family's wealth together, the Rezzonicos had gone extinct several years ago, wherefore their host tonight would be none other than Cecilia Cuzzoni.
The palace she lived in was large, even by Venetian standards. Its façade was facing the Grand Canal where it joined the Rio di San Barnaba, which meant that it had water on two sides. A small wooden bridge across the San Barnaba connected the palace's portico with the adjacent island. Several dozen gondolas were tied up by brightly painted wooden posts standing in the water around the landing place. The façade was three stories of light grey stones and rich white marble colonnades, all highly ornate. The ground floor was rusticated, containing a central recessed portico of three bays without a pediment, symmetrically flanked by windows in two bays. Above this the piano nobile of seven bays of arched windows, separated by pilasters, above this the second piano nobile was near identical, and above this a mezzanine floor of low oval windows. The slight projection of the two tiers of balconies to the piano nobili accentuated the baroque decoration and design of the building. Everything was brightly lit by torches and lanterns, and from the piano nobile sounded music and pleasant chatter.
A pageboy helped them ascend the steps from the water to the pavement. Looking around, Lelouch realised that, even in the clothes Haliburton had gifted him, he was dressed poorly compared to the other guests' attire: he wore a black (as befit him) double-breasted coat with large silver buttons, a dark grey waistcoat, black breeches with white silk stockings and black lacquered shoes, a cravat tied in the latest Venetian fashion, his smallsword had a gilded hilt and gilded black leather scabbard, and he wore a hat in the latest fashion, a so-called bicorne. Instead of being triangular in shape, this new hat's broad brim had the front and rear halves turned up and pinned together (the shorter front brim being called the "cock" and the longer rear binned called a "fan"), forming a semi-circular fan shape. The hatter and Rolo had tried to convince him to wear a cockade with that, either the scarlet national cockade of Spain or the blue-and-gold one of the Republic of Venice, or perhaps something entirely different – pure white or blue-red-and-white, to show support for either the royalists or the revolutionaries? But no, for how could he, after what had happened! And so his bicorne tonight was simple black felt.
And while Haliburton was not overly dressed up by his standards , the same could not be said for the other guests. Many of the gentlemen wore brightly coloured coats and breeches (though many, rather curiously, wore trousers); and as many as half the ladies sported simple, often risqué white dresses that would not have looked out of place in Ancient Greece, but certainly looked outlandish to him – though that might just have been him being something of a backwoodsman. After all he remembered Cecilia Cuzzoni's dress at the opera, with one breast and even both shoulders bared; and he knew that dresses bearing one or both breasts were not uncommon in French court fashion. It still seemed strange to him.
They entered the building. Haliburton led him through the courtyard with what had once been the Rezzonico's office and storage. "Cecilia holds a big salon every Wednesday," he said. "Have you ever been to a salon?" Lelouch said he hadn't, prompting his host to explain. "There are of course other salons in Venice, bigger ones, too. Cecilia's is the only one I attend regularly, though – there always is some kind of entertainment, of course. We celebrated her 20th birthday earlier this year with a specially-commissioned one-act opera by Anfossi. But people mostly come to talk …"
At the end of the courtyard was a grand staircase to the piano nobile, brightly lit by chandeliers, under a huge relief of the arms of the extinct Rezzonico family. A fountain's gentle rippling to the left, chatter and music from above. They ascended the grand staircase and a page took their hats.
The first room was a massive ballroom. Two stories high, it took in all of the palazzo's width and perhaps a fourth of its length. Tall windows to the Rio di San Barnaba, the courtyard and the land side and intricate trompe-l'œil paintings – painted corridors and adjacent halls, colonnades, pillars and landscapes; as if the hall never ended – on the ballroom's wall made it feel even larger. A magnificent ceiling fresco depicted Phoebus on his chariot. Above the windows to the courtyard, the arms of the Rezzonico family amid gilded drapes. Flanking the doors to the grand staircase and two suites of rooms to the left and right of the courtyard were life-sized ebony statues of Nubian savages wielding clubs. Comfortable-looking chairs and sofas by the walls, all ebony with dark green cushions, invited to rest. Two magnificent crystal chandeliers bathed the ballroom in a warm, brilliant light. A chamber orchestra of some 23 pieces was playing a serenade in B flat major by the recently deceased Amadeo Mozart, a piece Lelouch had known well, once, in a life before this one. Other guests were standing around the room in pairs and small groups, glasses in hands, conversing.
Haliburton seemed to know each and every one of them, and so they only slowly made their way through the ballroom as Haliburton introduced Lelouch to them. He shook hands and laughed at jokes and made a witty remark here and there. It was the same when they passed in the next room, richly decorated with an allegory of a married couple, with a small chapel by the side, and the room after that.
Lelouch was surprised at how many nobles were present. While he had been part of Venice's society for the past month, he had met relatively few patricians, but here, two out of three seemed to be of noble descent, judging by their surnames.
When he mentioned that to Haliburton, his host merely laughed. "Sorry to disappoint," he quietly said, "but they are nobles in name only. They're Barnabotti – impoverished patricians. By right of birth, they sit on the Grand Council. But in Venice, you count nothing if you are poor. And they certainly are – they live worse than most workers. They are forbidden by law to learn a trade or work for pay. All they can turn to are charity, government benefits and gambling."
"Then why are they here?," Lelouch inquired, somewhat appalled. He could understand that the Barnabotti were due some dignity due to their nobility, but he had expected to be amongst gentlemen and women tonight. He did not doubt that the other guests had the decorum and refinement becoming a gentleman, having spoken to them, but their economic position directly contradicted their claim to gentle standing.
Haliburton smiled quizzically. "I think it'd be best for Cecilia to explain that to you. Oh, one more thing – it is forbidden by law to discuss politics and you can be fined for it. That said, talk as much politics as you want; Cecilia is a good … friend of one of the three State Inquisitors. Oh, she also has this thing about addressing everyone in her inner circle by their first names, so don't be offended. In turn, you may address her as Cecilia, but she won't mind if you don't."
They entered the fourth room on the canal side of the palazzo. The wallpaper was gold decorations on red ground, and the furnishings were kept in red and gold as well. It was far quieter here than in the ballroom. About a dozen men and women were assembled here, seated on sofas and armchairs or leaning on sideboards. Most of them looked Italian, but there was at least one gentleman whose blonde hair and blue eyes placed his origins further north. None of them seemed older than 30. Servants quietly walked around the room, distributing refreshments, and on a buffet arrangements of sweets and snacks had been set up. A young man in a burgundy coat was reading from a little book in French. In fact, most of the people assembled here seemed rather young, with little a guest past forty.
Upon entering, pages closed the door behind them, having recognised Haliburton before. The door to the portego was also closed and Lelouch realised that this was the actual salon, the hard core of Cecilia Cuzzoni's like-minded friends. He felt a little like intruding, but if it would offer him a chance to behold the woman's beauty once again before he left for Vienna, it was well worth it.
On a chaise longue beneath the window leading out to the Grand Canal lay, outstretched and rested on her right elbow like a Roman goddess, Cecilia Cuzzoni. She wore another sheer white dress, decorated with green vines, with a ruffled hemline and a narrow belt of gold cord, with white stockings and silk slippers showing below the hem, lying as she was. Her silky bright green hair fell loosely over her shoulders. Apparently she had given up on the attempt to wear her hair in the fashionable mass of curls most of her female guests sported. A smile played around her lips as she attentively listened to the man reading.
The moment he had first seen her, Lelouch had forgotten why he had come. In fact, for a moment, he forgot to breathe. Her beauty had been stunning from afar at the opera, but it was absolutely striking from up close. Every detail of her unblemished face, neck and décolletage was in plain sight, and each of them added to the impression. If his Nunnally had been Helen, why, this was some kind of unearthly Venus. And, another thing that distinguished the two beauties: while the former's had been pure and innocent, in a way still that of a child, Cecilia Cuzzoni's beauty was that of a woman. Even though her dress was nowhere near as risqué as what she had worn to the opera, there was something incredibly erotic about the way she lay there on the chaise longue. Perhaps it was the open and uncovered hair? But perhaps it was just the way she was, her natural beauty, or the experience of her profession that made Lelouch's body ache with desire, made him think: a fruit ripe for plucking, made her the pinnacle of all the beauty he had seen in Venice.
When she had seen Haliburton, a smile had lit up her face and she had risen to approach him. Now the others noticed him as well and the man in the centre interrupted his reading. Cecilia Cuzzoni embraced Haliburton and kissed his cheeks, brightly smiling. "Rolo," she said as they parted in a voice that was both sweet and mocking, that was a clean soprano with deeply vibrating notes at the bottom. She spoke French. "We missed you, dear! Where have you been?"
Haliburton grinned sheepishly. "Ah, well, I'm awfully sorry about that … you see, I had a guest … Cecilia, this is Lelouch de Lamperouge, from Spain. Monsieur de Lamperouge, meet Madame Cuzzoni."
Smiling, the courtesan turned to face Lelouch. "Any friend of Rolo is our friend," she said. "Welcome to Venice, Lelouch." She reached out a slender hand for him to kiss.
Well, she certainly was confident for a courtesan. But refusing the hand would be impolite, and so he took it and adumbrated a kiss. He was a little confused on whether to touch her knuckles with his lips or not – did a courtesan count as married or unmarried? In any case, she did not object. "Enchanted, Madame," he managed to reply in the same language, "I have been looking forward to meeting you."
Cecilia continued to introduce the other guests: seated on a chair beside the buffet a young and plain lady named Caterina "Nina" d'Unpietra, the unmarried daughter of a rich patrician who had made a few small contributions to natural philosophy, the French poetess and pamphleteer Olympe Malkal, merchants Andrea Farnese (no relation) and Michele Manfredi with their wives, the unsuccessful Prussian playwright and poet Gino (actually Eugen, as he was quick to point out) von Weinberg-Aschenbach and his Venetian fiancée, Kallen Campocitta, a beautiful young woman with fiery red hair and bright blue eyes who struggled unsuccessfully to keep her friend Cecilia from mentioning that they used to be colleagues, then the one who had been reading when they had entered, Leonardo Sasso, a philosopher of nature who insisted on being called Gracchus, the painter Mario Cavaradossi and his lover the singer Floria Tosca, and Cecilia's current lover, Baron Matteo Dupole, called Mao.
A tall man in his twenties, he had full, silver-white hair and sharp black eyes. The baron was, legally speaking, the owner of Ca' Rezzonico, but on the other hand he was married as well, to a woman twice his age. Coming from a recently ennobled, but insanely rich family, he had taken over the Dupoles' trading empire at 23 and now traded mostly in furs and fine cloths, with branch offices in Constantinople, Genoa, Rome, Kerch on the Crimea and Moscow.
He was, however, more concerned about matters closer to home. As a noble, he automatically held a seat on the Republic's Grand Council, but he had gone further and had himself elected into the Consilio dei Pregradi, the 120-member senate of the Republic in charge of day-to-day legislation. Since, he had made a name for himself as a radical, but highly intelligent politician and considered to be likely to be elected into the Ten next year and, perhaps, become Doge one day, in thirty to fifty years.
Also, he was the exclusive lover (customer?) of Cecilia Cuzzoni. Lucky bastard.
Lelouch and Haliburton sat on elaborate ebony armchairs with red lining and Gracchus Sasso resumed his reading:
"In our country we want to substitute morality for egoism, honesty for honour, principles for customs, duties for decorum, the rule of reason for the tyranny of custom, the contempt of vice for the contempt of misfortune, pride for insolence, magnanimity for vanity, love of glory for love of money, good people for well-bred people, merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for pompous action, warmth of happiness for boredom of sensuality, greatness of man for pettiness of the great; a magnanimous, powerful, happy people for a polite, frivolous, despicable people - that is to say, all the virtues and all the miracles of the Republic for all the vices and all the absurdities of the monarchy.
"In one word, we want to fulfil the wishes of nature, accomplish the destiny of of humanity, keep the promises of philosophy, absolve Providence from the long reign of crime and tyranny.
"What kind of government can realize these marvels? Only a democratic or republican government.
"But what is the fundamental principle of the democratic or popular government, that is to say, the essential strength that sustains it and makes it move? It is virtue: I am speaking of the public virtue which brought about so many marvels in Greece and Rome and which must bring about much more astonishing ones yet in republican France; of that virtue which is nothing more than love of the fatherland and of its laws.
"If the strength of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the strength of popular government in revolution is both virtue and terror; terror without virtue is disastrous, virtue without terror is powerless. Terror is nothing but prompt, severe, and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a particular principle than a consequence of the general principle of of democracy applied to the most urgent needs of the fatherland. It is said that terror is the strength of despotic government. Does ours then resemble the one with which the satellites of tyranny are armed? Let the despot govern his brutalized subjects through terror; he is right as a despot. Subdue the enemies of liberty through terror and you will be right as founders of the Republic. The government of revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny."
The naturalist finished, closed the booklet in his hands and sat. "Thank you, Gracchus," Cecilia said, switching to Italian. "Say, who wrote this, again? I find it most extraordinary."
"The public prosecutor of Paris and member of the Jacobin Club, a citoyen Maximilien de Robespierre."
"I am certain we will hear more of him in the near future," Cecilia expressed. "His proposition seems the logical consequence of the Revolution. Liberty can only flourish once the nation has been cleansed of subversive elements, of the agents of tyranny. Right now, the Revolution is fragile and threatened."
"Still," Gino objected, "we must be careful not to compromise the Revolution. Once the people's delegates make use of despotic means, they might become despots themselves. There need to be limits on … how does he call it? "Terror". Imagine a ruthless demagogue gaining control of the state and using terror to subdue the friends of liberty. Caesar, after all, never ceased power. He was elected into office and simply refused to step down."
Whispering, Lelouch leaned in to ask Haliburton: "What is this place …?"
He could not tell what he had expected. The fact was that, though he dabbled in Venetian society quite a lot in the past month, he had not heard a single political discussion since … well, since leaving Cadiz. He'd had no idea what the political climate in Venice was, much less their opinion regarding the Revolution in France. Hence, he had supposed that implicit in their silence was the same hatred of that Revolution he felt. After all, was that hatred not what all sentient creatures ought to feel at the unholy proceedings in the realm of France?
"Well," Haliburton whispered back, "I told you most of us are republicans, didn't I …"
"I don't think you did, . I would not have come if you had." Indeed, he was tempted to leave on some pretext. He may have been idle where he should have been industrious, may have rested where he should have marched on and betrayed Nunnally's memory in ways innumerable. Nevertheless, this was too much. How could he hold company with her murderers, drink their wine, eat their food, and conspire to uphold the system that had murdered her?
But that would be incredibly rude, and it would mean that he would no longer be able to gaze at the courtesan. And so, he remained where he was. Forgive me, Nunnally.
"Certainly," Kallen agreed. "That is a possibility. However, the use of terror as a revolutionary weapon serves to expose such Caesars and, once found, remove them from the body politic. We have yet to see it in use, but I am certain that, once the Legislative Assembly proclaims the terror, the Revolution will stabilise."
"Of course, the monarchy needs to be destroyed before that," Olympe Malkal threw in. "The Revolution cannot rest in peace as long as it is lead by kings. The crowned heads of Europe will do all to destroy us and maintain their power."
"Not necessarily," Farnese objected. "In any civilised system, some people have power and others don't. That is the law of nature. It would be completely impossible to achieve full equality, but it is well possible to achieve the greatest possible liberty within a system of monarchy. Hence, why commit an act of barbarianism against the King of the French, who rules by the will of the nation, when we can just as well strip him of his objectionable powers and achieve the same?"
"So a king who claims to rule by divine right would just accept that?," Gino inquired. "I cannot believe that. Even in England, where the people have been ruling for a century through Parliament, the king has again and again attempted to regain the power his ancestors bore in an less enlightened time. No – the crowned heads of Europe will never let us rest if we let them rest."
"In any case," Cecilia tried to moderate the discussion. Her words drew all attention – it was obvious that her opinion was held in high regard, even beyond her being the host, "how does this apply to Venice? With all these considerations in mine, we have to consider that we have little influence on the proceedings on France. As civilised humans, however, it is our supreme duty to support the Revolution and spread its fire across the nations. All over Europe, friends and allies are working towards the greater liberty of the nations. It is our duty to liberate Venice. Now, we cannot apply what worked in Paris to this greatest of cities. Too unique is our Serene Republic. Now, friends, how may we carry the Revolution to the Lagoon?"
Forgive me, Nunnally.
"Well, I suppose the oligarchy is a problem," Haliburton (good Lord) noted. "In France, it was the bourgeoisie that directed and lead the Revolution. In Venice, the aristocracy in the Grand Council has no real complaints – the entire state is tailored to their measure. They will not rise. The people might, if we inspire them – but what is the difference? The people of France were poor and hungry. In Venice, even the poorest of the poor live in splendour compared to them. You cannot have both a full stomach and a Revolution."
"So what do you propose?"
"Venice used to be a democracy, if I got my history right. In the Early Middle Ages, the Grand Council did not yet exist. The Doge was elected and the Republic governed by the assembly of all free citizens. Of course such an arrangement is no longer completely viable – we have grown too far, our nation has spread beyond the Lagoon onto the terra firma, into Dalmatia and the Aegean. We can no longer govern this nation in the assembly of the citizens. Nevertheless, upon this we must base our next steps. We cannot have a proper Revolution. Our best bet is to use the established canals of the governance of the Republic to bring about reform. We need to gain control of the Barnabotti, then we'll have a majority in the Grand Council. It might be slow, but it's our best chance."
"Can we, actually? The Barnabotti live by selling their votes. We'd have to either buy them or somehow convince the great majority of them."
"Quite a lot of them are here," Cecilia said. "Not enough, of course, but it's a start. Many of them are influential among the impoverished patricians. In any case, we won't need them for long. The question remains what exactly we will have to do."
There was a short pause. Lelouch grimaced. So, now it became obvious – the "salon" was, at best, a conspiracy to introduce the principles of the Revolution – tyranny, exploitation, brutality – to Venice. And, knowing the Venetians, they would not even resist. Here too, they would rape and murder noblewomen, would destroy tender bonds of love and replace them with cold vengeance. One part of Lelouch's mind noted that this would actually benefit him. The more young men minded on destroying that Revolution there were, the more men like him, the sooner the Revolution would fall. That was the calculating part, the home of Reason, but there was another part: primeval, archaic, yet overbearing, and it raged against whomsoever would rob him of his just revenge.
Eventually, Gino spoke. "I believe the first action we will have to take is to reform the constitution. We could just copy that of France."
"Doubtful," his fiancée objected. "You're not from Venice. The people of this city love their ancient traditions. And they have served us well, after all. This our Most Serene Republic has existed for some 13 centuries. It has never seen a coup. It has never been conquered. Whenever there was a crisis, military or economical, our ancient constitution provided political stability. There are a great many things wrong with it, but it would be better to reform it instead of replacing it."
"For instance?"
"Abolish the Great Council. What does it serve? Certainly not the interests of the people. The only ones who benefit from that institution, impractical as it is, is Venice's equivalent to the Second Estate. Only a tiny faction of Venice's total population is represented in it, and that of our other territories – Dalmatia, the Ionic Isles, the terra firma – not at all. It is also too big to be effective. They meet only a few times every year, and not in strength, and their sessions are taken up almost completely by electoral duties. What we need to do is abolish the Great Council and instead make the Senate a popularly elected legislative of the entire Republic."
Cecilia nodded. "What about the Doge, then? I quite like the old fool."
"Well, it's not as if he holds much power," Haliburton said. "He's mostly a ceremonial figure nowadays. It's the rest of the Signoriaand the Ten who really control the state. I don't think he does much harm. His term needs to be limited, though …"
And so it went on and on. It soon became obvious to Lelouch that the group was not having this discussion for the first time, which confused him: if they had been plotting for months, why was there still so little to show? Why was the Queen of the Adriatic still serene and unviolated? Setting aside the ridiculous possibility that they had not gotten to actually doing anything yet, it could only be due to incompetence. But all these people seemed intelligent and creative to him, if blind and misguided.
An hour or two passed. A light dinner of seven exquisite courses was served, and Cecilia left them for a short while to take care of her other guests. When she had returned, the discussion had moved on to the war. Of course, the revolutionaries were completely unable to find any sort of consensus. There were those who opposed France's Legislative Assembly's decision to declare war on the Empire, of course. The Revolution was not yet firmly entrenched in France, they said, and it was too early to start exporting it. But the great majority of them were enthusiastic at the outbreak at war.
But the salon was a Venetian one, and so the question of Venice's role in the conflict remained. Geographically speaking, the Venetian terra firma was situated just between France and Austria; bordering the Papal States in the South, Switzerland and the Bishopric of Trent in the North, the Austrian Duchy of Milan in the West and Austria proper in the East. For centuries, in the never-ending conflict between the houses of Capet and Habsburg, the plains of Northern Italy, Lombardy and the Veneto, had been the battlefield of Europe. Already, Austrian forces had crossed the border to march to the Piedmontese front through the Veneto.
Accordingly, the Republic of Venice was forced to act. They had to declare for either side and block the way for the other, if not necessarily take up arms. Or the ancient Republic could stay serene as ever and have her countryside, after the decline of Mediterranean trade the source of her wealth, ravaged by both sides.
Obviously, the leading opinion was that Venice should ally with France against the tyrants of Europe, aid the struggling French with money and a rebuilt navy. "We were great," Cecilia pronounced to everyone's agreement, "We ruled the Middle Sea. Once – some three centuries ago – the Lion of St. Mark's roar was feared from Acre to Constantinople, from Constantinople to Genoa. Today, we pay tithes to the Emperor, the Grand Turk, the Pope and other tyrants to fare our sea. Once, the Arsenal could muster and man a fleet of half a thousand sails and twenty-five thousand oars within two months. Today, our fleet consists of only a handful of sails and is set to decline further since Grand Admiral Emo's death last month.. Once, our commerce and wealth were ever increasing. Today, we are living off accumulated wealth and small trade. Once, Venetian men could wrestle the Greek empire to the ground, led by a blind 95-years-old. Today, our men frolic in brothels and theatres and cower when called upon to fight the Turk. And our possessions in overseas – the Aegean isles, Crete, the Morea, sweet Corfu – are lost to the Mohammedans."
Cecilia had risen from her divan as she spoke these words, her dress falling around her white and supple limbs in the manner of the Ancients. "What might be the cause of this catastrophic decline?," she inquired. "What was our last great triumph? Lepanto, against the Turks. Have we changed since? Are we not as cunning, not as clever, not as proud as we used to be? Well, go to the Rialto and see for yourself if at least our merchants and pickpockets are not still as cunning as any Enrico Dandolo, who brought down the last of the Romans." There was some laughter. "But why then? Trade is falling into final collapse. The ancient and long-held maxims and laws which created and could still create a state's greatness have been forgotten. We are supplanted by foreigners who penetrate right into the bowels of our city – present company excepted. We are despoiled of our substance, and not a shadow of our ancient merchants is to be found among our citizens or our subjects. Capital is lacking, not in the nation, but in commerce. It is used to support effeminacy, excessive extravagance, idle spectacles, pretentious amusements and vice, instead of supporting and increasing industry which is the mother of good morals, virtue, and of essential national trade. Only three years ago, we have made a nouveau-riche Friulian doge. The Republic is dead, friends."
There was a long moment of silence in response to that. A swash of laughter in the adjacent room rose and died. Gino was absent-mindedly playing with a small square of Turkish nougat from the buffet, most of the other guests were silently staring at the floor. Cecilia sat and smoothed out an imagined wrinkle in her dress.
And Lelouch was impressed. When she had spoken just now, a fire had burned in her eyes that reminded him of his late sister. Gleaming, burning, with the intensity of a cavalry charge; eyes that said more than a thousand words ever could. The same passion, the same enthusiasm he had only ever seen in his mother and sister. It was exciting and, objectively, frightening at the same time.
He leaned back in his armchair and crossed his legs. "'Tis true," Lelouch spoke for the first time in this evening. Cecilia's gaze flickered over to him, apparently somewhat surprised. He kept a straight face, spoke cool and sharp. "The current of history is flowing against you. But it need not be the end. Throughout Venice's long history, she has faced three great threats – the opening up of the Cape route to the Indies in 1499, the steady spread of Turkish power for the two centuries following the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the combined onslaught launched against her by virtually the whole of Europe, united in the League of Cambrai – she was to blame for none; yet any one of them might have caused her downfall. To have survived all three is no mean accomplishment. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, however, her dégringolade has slowly been gathering momentum; and though, just occasionally, it has seemed to be checked by some spectacular victory or success, by the time the smoke dispersed and the cheering died away her triumphs were always revealed as illusory, and what had at first been hailed as a turning-point in Venetian fortunes was recognised to be merely another milestone on the downward path. Her much-vaunted defeat of the Turks at Lepanto in 1571 did her no good at all; Francesco Morosini's Peloponnesian conquests of 1685 lasted barely thirty years; and the jubilations with which you greeted the successful skirmishes of Angelo Emo against the Barbary pirates in the last decades proved only how desperately you need encouragement and how far your standards have declined.
"By now, too, another fact is becoming evident. Though cultural life might continue to flourish, though the economy might still have its ups and downs, the body politic is sick unto death. It is as if the constitution – that miraculous, marvellous constitution which has preserved your Republic until it could boast a longer period of unbroken authority than any other state in Europe – has worn out at last, all its former flexibility and resilience gone. The degree of influence wielded, for example, by Andrea Tron, who for a whole generation was virtual dictator of Venice by virtue not of any offices he held but of his character and personality alone, would have been unthinkable in former times – a betrayal of the one key principle for which the Republic had always striven, that too much power should never be concentrated in the hands of a single individual. Even after Tron's death, the late Doge Renier and his friends tended to govern you through small, semi-official groups and caucuses – much like the one you are planning to set up – some members of which might from time to time hold positions of responsibility in the Collegio or elsewhere but would not appreciably lose influence even when their terms of office expired. Such a system, whatever its fault, does not necessarily result in weak government, at least in the short term; with a firm hand at the helm, it may even make for quicker decisions and more determined action at the moment of crisis. But in the hands of mediocrities it cannot fail to sap the constitutional strength of the state, rendering it defenceless. I know not who will administer the coup de grâce, but the Serenissima is already doomed. Exhausted, demoralised and no longer able to keep pace with the changing world, you have, quite simply, lost the will to live.
"To keep going would require breaking the pattern in which you have crystallised. But you have grown fond of that pattern. Can you find the will to break it? Can you turn around the tide of history? You speak of your glorious past, Madame. Can you, then, bring up the same determination and ambition that enabled Enrico Dandolo to take Constantinople? Can you reform the body politic without reverting to anarchy and barbarism; can you be the wave of youthful energy that needs to overwhelm this city, half-asleep and dying as it is? I wonder."
"How sweet," the fiery redhead (Karen? Kallen? Something like that) scoffed, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Obviously, she was irritated by his speech. "A fine analysis indeed. And I suppose you already have the solution ready?"
"I will freely admit that I am a stranger to Venice, her history and her politics, whereas you fine ladies and gentlemen have spent your lives here. Nevertheless, if my analysis is correct, the solution seems obvious to me: the constitution of Venice, while it has been sufficient for centuries, must needs be reformed, and it must be reformed at once, lest the Republic is swept away by this war, which she shall not survive unless renewed. There needs to be, however, an impetus for this. You can see for yourself that nothing will be done unless the Grand Council's hands are forced. The way to bring this about is to join the war – on Austria's side." Suddenly, he had everyone's full attention. Surprise showed on their faces, maybe disbelief. He was asked to explain his reasoning – would he, perchance, try to hinder the Austrians by pretending to aid them?
"Not in the slightest. Consider it this way: Venice is trapped between Austria and Austrian Milan, with the Empire to the north and the Pope to the south. Should the Republic declare for France, the Veneto will become a battleground. At the moment, she can field some three brigades of Croatian mercenaries – not precisely a force capable of taking on the Austrians. Would the French not aid her, you ask? The French can barely defend their own borders. Their armies are ill-led, ill-fed and ill-equipped and will soon crumble under the onslaught of the civilised nations of Europe. Oh, but the Serenissima will withstand every siege, you say. Never before has she been conquered. Though she has no walls, the Lagoon serves as a formidable obstacle. Well, so was Tyre, the Venice of antiquity, defended by the sea, and she too has fallen. Your wooden walls? A handful of ragged sails, no match for even the Austrians! You cannot use them to bring in grain from your Dalmatian holdings, which shall soon be occupied, anyway, let alone defend your city. Should Venice be besieged today or tomorrow, she will fall. But the French are far, and the Austrians are near."
"That may well be," Cecilia said, "Nevertheless, it is our duty as humans to stand as a defender of liberty and equality, and the brotherhood of all nations. Though it may be safer, it is absolutely inconceivable that Athens should side with Sparta, or Cicero with Caesar. To side with Austria would be to fight with tyranny, inequality and war."
Lelouch found it hard to scoff at this, too enchanting was the fire in the courtesan's amber eyes. Still, he said: "And I shall prefer the rule of monarchs, the inequality of aristocracy, and properly civilised war over the anarchy of Revolution. The liberty of the sans-culottes is nothing but freedom from all mores and ethics. Their equality leads to murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest being openly taught and practised. Their fraternity amounts to imposition of these false ideals upon all the peoples of Europe by fire and sword. Hence, and that is my personal decision, I shall not cease from mental strife, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, 'till this monstrous Revolution has been crushed and erased from history itself."
One of the other guests (de Malkal?) shouted something indignant, but Cecilia leaned in interested, her gleaming eyes closely observing him. "Sounds fun," she said, "So I suppose you name us all murderers, robbers, rapists, adulterers and practitioners of incest by proxy? I might be a courtesan, but even I have standards … depending on the price."
If she were a man, Lelouch thought, he would challenge her to a duel. But she was not, and so words would have to suffice. "No, Madame," he said. "I name you all naïfs and ignoramuses … yet."
"Then I suppose you have made discoveries that make us all look virgin compared to you," Cecilia joked.
And that was it. Lelouch supposed that Cecilia was merely teasing – she could not know – but it still hurt. How had it come to this? How could he, not even an entire month after it had happened, talk about her at a party, as though she were not present? For she was present, doubtless, as she always was by his side, only intangible, inaudible, not there to aid him, but still judging him and holding safe his vow (Forgive me, Nunnally!)
Mao Dupole frowned and nodded, appearing concerned. "Indeed," he said in a smooth baritone, "you are wearing mourning, signor. Might we ask what ill fortunes you encountered on your journey?"
– and Lelouch relaxed his mien into an expressionless mask, tightly gripped the armrests of his chair and said: "None. None at all." – and asked for the forgiveness that would not come. Matthew 26:34, Mark 14:30, Luke 22:34, John 13:38. Verily I say unto thee that this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. – and cried bitterly. Should have, wanted to, but would not. He tightly gripped the armrests of his chair.
Lelouch could not tell if they believed him. In any case, they quickly changed topic. Someone brought up Gino's recently published collection of poems, and the Prussian was bullied of reading from them, to everyone's delight. There was a long discussion of the poems, and then of literature in general, and then of all the arts. Lelouch kept to himself, throwing in a remark once in a while but remaining silent otherwise. Occasionally, he believed to see Cecilia's eyes flicker over to him, but he paid little heed to it.
As the bells of Venice's innumerable churches rang two o'clock, many of the guests departed, until only the hostess, Dupole, Gino and Kallen, Haliburton and Lelouch remained. "Come to think of it," Haliburton said, "why do you hold this large a salon if you spend all your time with the handful of us? Does seem like quite a waste of money to me."
Cecilia laughed pleasantly. "Oh, Rolo," she playfully chided, "you're so English," (Haliburton mumbled something about being Scottish), "to think only about the money … why, you could be Venetian!" There were some chuckles, then she turned serious again. "To be frank … they bore me. They are important, yes, and that is why I invite them, but I find it hard to find anything interesting about the great majority of them. Hence, I offer them a forum to talk – plain talk for plain people. They get a glimpse of me and are entertained, I make lots of influential friends and at the same time spend most of my time with interesting people. Everyone ends up happy."
Dupole laughed and put his arms around Cecilia. Lelouch had to admit that he found the patrician rather likeable. Nevertheless, he found the scene somewhat disturbing. Enviable, perhaps. Even more enviable, though quite understandable, was the fact that Cecilia let him and responded by moving closer to her lover.
And so – slowly, languid as all in this city was, yet peaceful, pleasure – the evening ended. "It was wonderful to have you here," Cecilia told Lelouch as they parted. "You absolutely must come again, Monsieur."
"With the greatest of pleasures, Madame," he said, and he meant it. Little rather than that, in fact, though there was a curious expression indeed on Haliburton's face.
And thus they stepped aboard their gondola, with torches and lamps making the waters of the Grand Canal glimmer and shine like a thousand diamonds, to the sound of waves against wooden pillars, in the distance, strings and, high above, an oboe, and Lelouch thought to see Cecilia's face behind the bright-lit window of her salon, smiling at them (at him) as the gondolier pushed off and they gently glided into the distance.
Forgive me, Nunnally.
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