Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations (92 page)

Maria-Luisa had some success in creating that favourable feeling:

The Queen of Etruria was, in the opinion of the First Consul, more sagacious and prudent than her husband… [She] dressed herself in the morning for the whole day, and walked in the garden, her head adorned with flowers or a diadem, and wearing a dress, the train of which swept up the sand of the walk: often also carrying in her arms one of her children…; by night the toilet of her Majesty was somewhat disarranged. She was far from pretty, and her manners were not suited to her rank. But, which fully atoned for all of this, she was good-tempered, much loved by those in her service, and scrupulous in fulfilling the duties of wife and mother. In consequence, the First Consul, who made a great point of domestic virtue, professed for her the highest esteem.
³⁰

A concert and extravagant farewell party were organized for the visitors at the Château de Neuilly by Talleyrand. The chateau and park were illuminated with coloured lights, and one end of the hall was filled by a tableau of the Piazza della Signoria replete with fountains and ‘Tuscans singing couplets in honour of their sovereigns’. There was a grand ball hosted by the first consul’s sister Paolina, and the evening closed with a display of rockets, fireworks and ‘Bengal Fire’. Then the happy couple set off and travelled by stages to Florence. When they entered their capital on 2 August, they were greeted by representatives of the municipality; a new royal flag was flying, and a royal medal had been struck in celebration.
³¹
The streets were thronged with curious people, and General Murat was waiting with his staff and a detachment of cavalry to escort them into their residence in the Pitti Palace.

The Kingdom of Etruria’s territory of
c.
7,700 square miles formed a rough rectangle, bounded in the west by the sea, and in the north, east and south by high mountains. Northern Tuscany was separated from the basin of the Po by the Apennines, which at Monte Cimone rose above 6,000 feet. Travellers coming from the north, from Bologna, faced a wild tract of country:

Two miles before and after Scarico l’Asino, where the Italian customs house stands, the mountains become so black and barren that you discover nothing but naked crags and crumbled rocks… Farther on, Nature assumes a more cheerful face, the heights and bottoms being clad with spreading forests of chestnuts… Groves of fig-trees succeed them, and these are relieved by extensive plantations of olives, which in Etruria seem to have displaced every other fruit.
³²

Florence, the kingdom’s capital, was circled by a ring of ancient Tuscan towns – Prato, Arezzo, Cortona, Siena and San Gimignano – and was linked by the lower valley of the Arno to Pisa and the sea. Southern Tuscany round Pitigliano adjoined the frontier of the Papal States (which had been resuscitated in 1800) and the coastal strip extended southwards for some 90 miles as far as the peninsula of Monte Argentario. Etruria’s main outlet to the sea, Livorno, had been developed by the Medici as a free port, and had attracted an unusually cosmopolitan population. There were colonies of Greeks and Turks, a large Jewish community and, as the Protestant cemetery attests, a prosperous group of English merchants, who called it ‘Leghorn’. It had been relieved from the French occupation of 1796, but in 1798–9 it had been forced to supply ships and men for the Egyptian campaign. Suspicions of its pro-British sympathies persisted. The kingdom’s other ports, formerly part of the
Stato dei Presidii
, included Piombino, Talamone and Orbetello.
³³

Etruria was not poor. The Tuscan countryside was productive as always, and the cities maintained strong ties with international commerce; hence the continuing British interest. Foreign visitors were pleasantly surprised by the relatively low cost of living: ‘This city is not calculated to drain the traveller’s pocket… Bread and wine are still cheaper than in Rome; and a pot of excellent coffee with cream and cakes cost only five
grazie.
This coin, worth about a penny, appears to have taken its name from the Austrian
kreutzer…
It is singular that the Austrian ducats are all over Italy…’
³⁴
Indeed, multiple currencies operated. The Florentine system, which was similar to the £,
s
.,
d
. of England, was different from the Pisan. One Tuscan pound or
lira
was equivalent to 20
soldi
, and 1
soldo
to 12
denari
. Intermediate coins called
paoli
and
quatrini
also circulated. Austrian gold ducats and Maria Theresa silver
thalers
were highly valued.

An Englishwoman living in Tuscany at the time has left some vivid descriptions of the condition of the people and the country. In addition to the grand duchy’s artistic heritage, she writes enthusiastically about the vitality of urban life, the vigour of the peasantry and the enlightened nature of the prevailing laws. In Florence, for example, she was excited by the ceremonies surrounding the Feast of St John, the city’s patron, which took place every June. There were chariot-races, exhibitions of
pallone
, a game said to be the ancestor of baseball, and elaborate processions:

On the morning of the festa of S. Giovanni homage is paid by all the Tuscan cities to their prince; and this ceremony passes in the Piazza del Granduca; the throne of the sovereign being erected under the Loggia, which is hung with a fine tapestry, as is the royal box. The balconies and scaffoldings for the people are likewise handsomely decorated. No sooner has the prince ascended the throne (which is surrounded by the household and the great officers of state) than the procession commences with men on horseback dressed in ancient habits…; then come gentlemen [from] the neighbourhood of Pisa, then come immense wooden towers representing the several cities of Tuscany…; but when the citizens of Siena arrive, they are summoned to stop and their leader makes an oration expressing sorrow for the revolt some hundred years ago and promising they will always be loyal in future… After the Sanesi come the citizens of Florence followed by the little Tuscan army, which pays the military compliments to its sovereign and closes the procession.
³⁵

The English resident found the Florentines very hospitable, ‘fond of learning, the arts and sciences’, and ‘generally speaking, good-humoured, warm-hearted and friendly’. The greatest impression, however, was made by the peasants of the countryside:

The Tuscan peasantry, considered collectively, are pure in their morals and pastoral in their lives; and the peculiar comeliness of both sexes is very striking, especially in the environs of Florence… The men are tall, robust, finely proportioned, and endowed with that self-possession, which at once excites respect… The women are of a middle stature, and were it not for bad stays, would be well made. They have large, languishing black eyes accompanied by that expressive brow which constitutes the most captivating part of an Italian countenance. Their manners are uncommonly graceful, and instead of curtseying, they gently bow their bodies and kiss the hand of a superior… The upper class of farmers usually possess a horse, a waggon or two, and a pair of large, dove-coloured oxen, whose beauty is as remarkable as their masters… Shoes and stockings are deemed superfluous even by the women, who carry them in baskets on their heads until they reach town… The phraseology of Florentine peasants is wonderfully elegant, indeed their Italian is said to be the purest now spoken; but the most remarkable quality in these people is their industry: for during the hottest weather they toil all day without sleep… yet they live almost entirely upon bread, fruit, pulse, and the common wine of the country. Though their diet is light and their bodily exertions are almost perpetual, they commonly attain old age.
³⁶

In the two preceding decades, Tuscany had benefited greatly from the progressive social policies of the Habsburg grand dukes, who were paragons of the ‘enlightened despotism’ then in fashion. The contrast with England could not have been greater:

According to the law of the late Emperor Leopold, no one can be imprisoned for debt, though creditors have power to seize the property of their debtors; and no offence is punishable with death, though murderers are condemned to perpetual labour as galley-slaves; and to these and many other wise regulations are attributable the almost total exemption from robbery and murder which this country enjoys and the increase to its population… I have never heard of house-breaking, nor of more than one highway-robbery (and that committed by an Irishman) during my long residence…
³⁷

Modern historians confirm this positive picture. ‘Tuscany, insignificant in terms of
Realpolitik
,’ writes one British expert on the era, ‘was renowned throughout the civilised world… not only through its unique cultural heritage, but because of its enactment of some of the most enlightened principles of the Enlightenment.’
³⁸
The incoming Etrurian management would be hard pressed to match its predecessor.

The formation of a royal government, however, was severely constrained by the king’s French supervisors; all of Lodovico I’s appointments had to be made in consultation with the resident French ambassador and his legation. General Henri-Jacques Clarke (1765–1818), seconded to Florence from other duties in Italy, did not shrink from giving vociferous opinions. The king and the ambassador decided to retain the council of state and its subordinate ministries that had operated under the previous grand-ducal regime, but the French were adamant that no persons of the ‘Austrian persuasion’ could continue to hold senior office. The choice of chief minister fell on Count Odoardo Salvatico. The king and council established their own direct link with France by appointing Count Averardo Serristori as their ambassador to the first consul; in practice, to Talleyrand. A papal nuncio, Mgr Caleppi, was present, though his traditional influence was much reduced. On 29 August 1801 the king addressed his subjects in his first
motu proprio
or ‘decree’, which enjoined them to put the past into ‘perpetual oblivion’ and to heal their divisions.
³⁹
Over him hovered the shadow of 6,000 French troops, one-third of them men from the Polish Legions.

The outlines of local politics were clear to see. Small groups of Jacobin sympathizers and Freemasons existed in the cities, and tended to look to the French for radical measures. Conservative, anti-revolutionary circles were more numerous, especially in the countryside, often enjoying the support of the clergy. The middle ground was held by the so-called ‘Patriotic Party’, attached to Tuscany’s enlightened heritage and aiming to steer between the extremes; the University of Pisa was said to be its powerhouse. The prospects for moderation, however, were favourable. The violent events of ‘il ‘99’ had discredited doctrinaire positions, and the kingdom started life in the year of the Concordat, whereby the first consul was reconciled to the Roman Church. Italy appeared to be stabilizing. The French were making peace with Austria and with Britain, extricating themselves from their disastrous Egyptian expedition and evacuating Naples.

Within Napoleonic Italy, Etruria was surrounded by a patchwork of petty principalities, all dependent on France but each with a different regime. To the north, administered from Milan, lay the enlarged Cisalpine Republic. To the east and south, ruled from Rome, lay the restored but still occupied Papal States. To the north-west, lay the Ligurian Republic of Genoa and the Republic of Lucca.
*
Further north, Piedmont had been declared a French military district. In each of these places, as in Etruria, French-inspired republicans were vying with papal-backed ‘reactionaries’.
⁴⁰
Etruria found itself in a category in which local rulers possessed some leeway in internal affairs while deferring to France in external affairs.

The arrival of the royal couple in their residence, as described in the queen’s memoir, was less than auspicious. Their predecessor, the Grand Duke Ferdinando, had stripped the Pitti Palace of everything he could carry off, and the queen complained that she had to organize a whip-round of local sympathizers to provide some basic furniture and cooking utensils. As an infanta of Spain, accustomed to dining off gold and silver plate, she was reduced for the first time in her life to eating off porcelain. Worse, she suffered the first of two miscarriages.