Lucia (13 page)

Propped up against a wall of comfortable pillows, Lucia soon picked up her correspondence with Paolina. Alvisetto, she said, was giving her all sorts of satisfactions. He lost his umbilical cord on the third day, which she saw as “a sign of strength and health.” Six days later he shed all his milk crusts—another “sign of robustness.” The outlook for breastfeeding was promising too:

I haven’t had the joy of giving him my own milk yet but I understand it will happen very soon. The milk we are drawing from my breast we are giving to the wet-nurse’s daughter. [In two days] I will put my feet on the ground for the first time, and lie on the chaise-longue while they make my bed up.
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As she ended her letter she heard the thundering blast of 300 cannon announcing the christening of Archduke Ferdinand, the son of Emperor Francis II and Empress Maria Theresa. From her bed, Lucia could see the candles the Viennese had put at their windowsills to welcome the imperial heir. She also heard the crowds in the streets below “expressing their joy with boisterous chants”—a little too boisterous for Lucia’s taste, as they often kept her awake.

It was not until two full weeks after Alvisetto’s birth that Lucia announced to Paolina: “I am nursing my child and I am the happiest woman.”
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When she held her baby boy at her breast and felt him gently tugging at her nipple, she said, her fulfilment was complete. Doctor Vespa came by to check on Alvisetto and monitor Lucia’s condition, and resume his cosy chitchat. The empress was having difficulty with her milk. “Apparently she is envious that I am nursing my son,” Lucia reported with a hint of mischievous pride. The post brought packets of congratulatory letters from Venice, mostly from Mocenigo aunts and uncles and cousins. And nobody was genuinely more enthused than her mother-in-law, Chiara, who now claimed to have known all along that Lucia was going to deliver a baby boy: “My darling Lucietta, I cannot begin to tell you the joy I feel for this birth which, I can now reveal to you, my soul had presaged. I hope with all my heart that the two of you will remain in perfect health, and no doubt the good blood with which you have imbued your son will ensure this. Believe me, the arrival of this sweet baby has consoled this family, and us parents, no end.”
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O
nly echoes of the outside world had reached Lucia during the bitter cold winter. She had been far too absorbed by her apprehensive musings about motherhood to pay more than scant attention to the war of Austria and Prussia against France. Nevertheless, she had been shocked to learn, back in January, about Louis XVI’s beheading in Paris. She was also aware, thanks to Doctor Vespa’s briefings, of the court’s anxiety for the fate of Queen Marie Antoinette, herself a Habsburg and the aunt of Emperor Francis II. The Austro-Prussian offensive against revolutionary France had been repelled during the autumn of 1792. Now, in early spring of 1793, the tide seemed to be turning, with the monarchist coalition gaining victories at Liège and Maastricht, taking control of Holland and pushing the French
armée
as far south as Antwerp, where the attackers were hoping for a breakthrough that would open the field to an invasion of France.

As she nursed Alvisetto in the penumbra of her bedroom, Lucia sometimes heard the bells of Saint Stephen’s tolling for the dead soldiers who lay strewn in the muddy fields of Flanders. But otherwise, life at 144 Kohlmarkt went on quietly and uneventfully. Lucia’s milk was plentiful, and she spent most of her time with the baby, mired in a jumble of sheets, swaddling cloth, bathing appliances and bottles of essential oils prescribed by Doctor Vespa, who came by to see if Lucia had properly put the baby to sleep, “always on his side.” At the end of April, Lucia and Alvise planned to celebrate their sixth wedding anniversary with a quiet dinner at home. “But you won’t be here, Paolina,” Lucia noted with sadness, “and neither will be the person who is always present in our hearts. So this family gathering won’t give me the pleasure it used to give me in the past.”
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Lucia slowly emerged from her gauzy cocoon. The weather grew mild and signs of spring were everywhere. She and Alvise took Alvisetto for an occasional stroll. The linden trees were regaining their lush foliage and flowerbeds were bursting with bright yellows and reds. It was a different, more vibrant and colourful city than the one she had seen when she had arrived in the early autumn. The latest fashions from Paris were all the rage—Lucia had heard that Viennese women had special dolls clad in Parisian clothes sent to them so as to better replicate the style of the new season. Splendid carriages paraded up and down the cobbled streets. At the Prater, music stands and lemonade booths attracted crowds of young families like theirs.

When Lucia had recovered enough strength, she began to organise dinner parties at home, eight or ten people at the most, “the quality of the guest compensating for the small number of people at the table.” These evenings were a welcome diversion—especially for Alvise, who was growing somewhat restless so far removed from the political scene in Venice and from his beloved Molinato. The guests tended to be mostly diplomats and travellers from Italy—Neapolitans, Tuscans, Milanese, and of course every Venetian who came through town. Doctor Vespa, practically part of the family and something of a hero to the Mocenigos, was a regular at these Italian soirées. Lucia was keen to get as much out of him as she possibly could before heading back to Venice. Unguents, potions, infusions, herbal teas: she wrote everything down very carefully, including his latest therapy for increasing the level of iron after childbirth, which she thought would be very useful for her slightly anaemic younger sister. The island of Elba, off the coast of Tuscany, was known for its rich iron ore, and the doctor strongly suggested drinking the water from the river that flowed to Porto Ferraio, the main harbour on the island. A good apothecary in Venice might carry some bottles, Lucia told Paolina. If not, the simplest way was to have a demijohn of the precious water shipped from Livorno and drink two glasses every morning for two months.

In early June, Alvise mapped out their return journey. They would travel through Carinthia, making a stopover in Klagenfurt before crossing the Julian Alps and descending towards Udine, the capital of Friuli, practically in sight of the northernmost Mocenigo estates. From there it would be an easy ride home. Lucia could already see herself in Venice with her sister, nursing Alvisetto on the balcony of Palazzo Mocenigo at one end of the Grand Canal, while Paolina nursed little Isabella further upstream, at the former Ca’ Memmo, renamed Palazzo Martinengo. “We shall visit each other all the time and enjoy the afternoon breeze together,” she wrote with anticipation.
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She was returning to Venice victorious. Her station in society was secure; her rank among her peers considerable. As she pictured herself settling once more at Palazzo Mocenigo, some of the old anxiety came back to her as she worried about the numerous relations living there—many of them quite old and doddering—reacting with impatience to Alvisetto’s shrieks and wailings. But her mother-in-law reassured her on that count: “My grandson’s loud music will never be unpleasant. It has been a very long time since such a comforting sound was heard in Ca’ Mocenigo.”
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A
lvise and Lucia did not arrive in Venice until mid July, after a much longer and rougher journey than expected. The weather was unseasonably cold and the skies were stormy most of the way. It even snowed as they crossed the Alps. Apart from the general discomfort—the constant rattle, the banging on the hard wood—Lucia hardly had time to enjoy the scenery, what with having to breastfeed Alvisetto and nurse him to sleep as their carriage climbed up and down the mountains. By the time they reached Palazzo Mocenigo Lucia was sore, exhausted and sleepless. The absence of her father threw her into deep melancholy, which the sight of Paolina and her two daughters, Cattina and little Isabella, only partially assuaged. She was ordered to bed and the Mocenigo doctors gathered around her prescribing the usual cycle of bleedings. But Lucia feared this perfunctory, all-purpose remedy might reduce the quality of her milk if not even diminish it. Her mother-in-law hovered over her protectively, insisting she follow the house-doctors’ advice. “It would be most useful if you had the vein of your arm punctured in order to extract a good four ounces of blood,” she advised. As for the milk, Lucia need not worry. “If the blood is taken out while you are breastfeeding, then there is no danger of reducing the quantity of milk you have.”
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Lucia knew there was nothing wrong with her. She was just very tired. All that useless fretting made her feel a stranger in her own house again. She missed Vienna. Above all, she missed the comforting presence of Doctor Vespa.

In only a year the atmosphere had changed noticeably in Venice. All of Europe was at war now, and though the Venetian Republic still clung to its proud neutrality it was slowly being sucked into the vortex unleashed by the French Revolution. Great Britain, Spain and Piedmont had joined the Austro-Prussian coalition, which was routing French forces north, east and south. The French government was also defending itself from a bloody insurgency in the region of Vendée. It looked as if the Revolution were hopelessly besieged. Even the legendary General Dumouriez, the hero of the battle of Valmy, had quarrelled with the politicians at the Convention and had gone over to the enemy. The Jacobins had taken effective control in Paris, expelling the moderate Girondins from the Convention and establishing a Committee of Public Safety, a de facto dictatorship led by Maximilien-François Robespierre, that dragged the country deeper into a spiral of state violence and terror. By the time Lucia arrived in Venice in July, the grisly tales coming from Paris were suddenly brought into focus with the news that Queen Marie Antoinette had not been spared the guillotine. Hundreds if not thousands of French émigrés were roaming northern Italy now in search of a safe haven, and many of them had settled in Venetian territory. Chief among them was Louis XVI’s brother, the Comte de Provence, second in line to the throne after the dauphin, the young Louis.

The war was having a profound effect on the political climate in Venice. The Council of Ten tightened its grip and made all decisions largely ignoring the Senate. The State Inquisitors expanded their role in an atmosphere of suspicion and fear. Alvise, who had been on leave to be with Lucia in Vienna, was eager to get back into the political game. He was alarmed by the reactionary turn the government had taken and blamed the old, conservative patricians for seeking cover in the face of turmoil rather than rising to the challenge with a more imaginative diplomacy. But he knew he had to bide his time and not appear callow or over-ambitious. His time would come, no doubt. Meanwhile he sought and obtained the post of captain of Verona—a city where the Mocenigos had maintained strong connections with the local ruling families.

In all the major cities in the mainland territories, the Venetian government traditionally appointed a
capitano,
in charge of security and finances, and a
podestà,
a mayor in charge of justice and local administration. These positions carried prestige, but they also required considerable personal expenditure, and the government was finding it increasingly hard to recruit qualified patricians who were also rich enough to occupy the position decorously. As a result, the military and the civilian ruler were often the same person. This was the case with Alvise, who was appointed
capitano
and
vice podestà
—deputy mayor, the position of mayor remaining vacant during his tenure. He was, in other words, the highest and most visible authority in Verona, headquartered in the Palazzo del Capitano, an imposing early Renaissance marble
palazzo
in the Piazza della Signorìa, where a succession of Venetian proconsuls—including a number of Mocenigos—had lived since Venice had conquered Verona in the early part of the fifteenth century. The appointment was for sixteen months and Alvise installed himself in the autumn of 1793. The province of Verona was one of the richest of the Venetian Republic. Extensive fields of wheat and maize, interspersed with vineyards and olive groves, shaped the gently rolling countryside east of Lake Garda. Rice paddies covered the wetter plains along the river Adige. The mulberry tree was also widely grown, producing the worms for the silk industry that thrived in the area. Verona itself, an old Roman city on the banks of the Adige, had a population of about 50,000. Its military importance, once considerable, had diminished as the military power of the Venetian Republic had declined. But it was a busy commercial centre—the gateway for the all-important trade with the Habsburg Empire—and there could not have been a better vantage point for Alvise, interested as he was in exploring new outlets for his agricultural ventures and experiments at Molinato.

What was a good move for Alvise, though, was not the best arrangement for Lucia, who was just settling back in Venice after a year in Vienna, and was already being asked to pack up and get back on the road. Of course, Verona was not far. In ideal conditions, one could leave Venice at dawn, cross the lagoon and be in Padua by mid morning, take a post-chaise to Vicenza and reach Verona by nightfall. But travel conditions were seldom ideal. Carriages broke down, old beaten-up horses collapsed, and in the autumn and winter parts of the road were often flooded. Besides, Lucia was still on a full breastfeeding schedule, determined to nurse Alvisetto as long as she had milk to give him. The journey from Vienna had been distressing enough and the last thing she wanted was to climb into a carriage with her baby boy, who was not even six months old, and travel to a new city. So she decided to join her husband the following spring, when Alvisetto would be a little more robust, while her husband went ahead.

Somewhat to his surprise, Alvise discovered that the people of Verona had a fond memory of his eccentric father, who had held the same position he now occupied until he had launched his ill-fated candidacy for the supreme office of doge in 1788, only five years earlier. At the time, Sebastiano had celebrated the start of his campaign by distributing large quantities of money and bread among the Veronese and throwing an extravagant ball in the Palazzo del Capitano, where Alvise now lived. The Veronese had given him an equally impressive send-off, with dancing and drinking in the main city square, and fireworks at midnight over the splendid ruins of the Roman arena. The memory of that joyful carousing still lingered in the city and Alvise was warmly received as the son of Sebastiano—something he had hardly expected given his own view of his father.