A Tale of Two Cities

The French, arriving in Venice, looted her treasures, destroyed churches and burnt records relating to old Venetian Republic, Serenissima.  All this was witnessed by Andrea Salvini, who was to live under successive occupations by the French and Austrian forces and would have, as a citizen of Venice (Venezia), loathed both nations - perhaps in equal measure.

The lions guarding the old arsenale - see Useful Links for video

Andrea Salvini was born in Venice in 1768 and died in his house there after suffering a stroke in 1819.  The works and achievements of Salvini, a talented and well-travelled naval engineer, are fully documented in Mario Marzari’s Progetti per L’Imperatore. 

It was Oscar Wilde who said that any fool can make history, but it takes a genius to write it.  Sadly, this means that researching historical fiction can be a headache for any author, as it is rare for two accounts (each aspiring to genius) of events in history to agree completely. 

A model of the Rivoli with one of the 'camels' in place

The history of the construction and loss of the Rivoli, intended to be the flagship of Napoleon’s new navy, is a case in point.  Who was really responsible (Salvini or Tupinier?)  for the ship’s design, and of the design of the ‘camels’ used to take her out of the lagoon at Venice and into the waters of the Adriatic?  On the fateful maiden voyage, did Capitaine Barré set sail for Ancona, Pola or Trieste?  Was she lost due to the Dalmatian crew abandoning the ship’s guns and fleeing below decks as some accounts state, or did she put up a brave fight ( as the British claimed) and only struck her colours when her rudder became disabled?

Historical accounts generally agree on one thing: Tupinier and Salvini disliked each other.  Tupinier, in his autobiography Mon Rêve, is quite clear in stating that using the ‘camels’ to float the Rivoli was his own idea (whilst acknowledging that the Dutch had originally pioneered their use).  Yet we know (see the chapter Il Viaggio di A. Salvini in Olanda e Francia in Mario Marzari’s Progetti per L’Imperatore) that Salvini travelled extensively in Holland and France in the period 1808 – 1809, and would clearly have known all about the use of the ‘camels’ in Holland as a result.

Jean-Marguerite Tupinier (pictured left in his latter years) was, like Salvini, an outstanding naval engineer.  He was born in Cuisery in Saône-et-Loire in 1779.  The son of a judge, his early life was marred by the arrest of his father during The Terror.  As a young man studying naval engineering, he described the day when he heard of his father’s release from prison as ‘the happiest day of my life’.  According to his own accounts, he seemed to strike up a rapport with Eugène Beauharnais, whose own father had lost his head to the blade of the guillotine.  But the friendship was to be short lived, due to Napoleon’s abdication in 1814.  Despite this and other setbacks, Tupinier’s career in France progressed steadily.  Once the initial displeasure shown by the Bourbon regime to an association with Beauharnais faded, he was recalled to the Paris HQ of the Ministry of Marine as Deputy Director of Ports. 

The Ministry of Marine in Paris

Photograph © Peter Alexander Gray 2009

 In later life he became involved more in French politics, speaking with authority on naval issues.  His career was remarkable in that it spanned not only the Resoration but two further revolutions, the last in 1848 causing him to step down from public life.  He died, childless, in 1850.

Napoleon's triumphal arch in the Tuileries

Photograph © Peter Alexander Gray 2009

The Ministry of Marine in Paris stands close by the Tuileries gardens, originally the site of a factory for making roof tiles.  The famous bronze horses, looted from St Mark’s Square in Venice, once stood atop Napoleon’s triumphal arch there.  After his abdication they were replaced by replicas and the originals returned to Italy. 

Napoleon himself had a flair, perhaps genius, for writing history.  The famous painting by Jacques-Louis David (above) is a brilliant piece of Napoleonic propaganda.The painting purports to show Napoleon leading his army up and over the Alps via the St Bernard's pass into Italy.

The truth, expressed clearly in Paul Delaroche’s 1850 depiction (above), is somewhat different... Eat your heart out, Pacienza!

Note: This blog supports readers of The Door of Perarolo, a historical novel set in Cadore, Italy in the early nineteenth century.  You may examine feedback from readers in the UK here and in the US here.  The Door of Perarolo is a Kindle ebook comprising 140 chapters.  It can be downloaded from Amazon sites worldwide.  The launch post of this blog gives further details.  The second post provides links to maps, etc.

A Glance at Old Perarolo

The river port of Perarolo was the most northerly port on the river Piave.  Here the waters of the Piave and the Boite, a major tributary, joined so as to provide enough depth of water to support commercial rafting.  After walking through the night upstream along the right bank of the Piave from Codissago, the zattieri di Codissago would arrive at Perarolo at daybreak to begin the construction of rafts.

When commercial rafting was at its height

 Colour tinted photo from an old postcard

The photograph above shows massive quantities of timber stacked along the right bank of the Piave at Perarolo.  Water, taken from the Boite river, was conveyed through a narrow channel (centre bottom of picture) to power the mills (a sawmill and a flourmill) at the southern end of the village.  Timber was also floated to the sawmills along this channel.  It was in this region - the southern end of Perarolo - that the rafts were assembled.

The church and campanile (close by the bridge) are not the same as those described in The Door of Perarolo.  A huge landslide blocked the course of the Boite River in 1823, forming  a natural dam.  The water pressure built up behind the frana blocking the Boite until it was sufficient to rupture the dam and sweep the frana away, and with it also a significant part of Perarolo.  Fortunately, the villagers, seeing the Boite riverbed dry, had sufficient warning to evacuate the population to higher ground.  The church was rebuilt in 1863 on a new site - by the bridge - but suffered further flood damage in 1882.  More problems with earthquakes and subsidence followed, and only the choir of the old church survives to the present day.  In 1906 the aisle and façade were reconstructed in wood under the direction of the Belluno master builder Luigi Croce, whilst in the same year the old campanile was demolished and replaced by the wooden one seen in the photograph in the post ‘Links to Maps’ of 25/09/13. 

Map showing the site of the cìdolo  at Sacco

Carte e Pianta Turistiche Tobacco sheet 16

After the Austrian re-occupation of Venetia a new road, the Cavallera was built to link Vienna with Venice through the Piave valley.  It leads north out of Perarolo, zigzagging up the mountainside below Damos.  If you look at the map, you can see at the first sharp bend of the Cavallera, a road leading down to the right bank of the Piave at Sacco.

The cìdolo at Sacco

Here was sited il cìdolo, a kind of covered doorway or portcullis in the river.  Men worked inside the cìdolo sorting the logs for the sawmills of the Piave valley.

The church of Sant’Anna

Photograph © Sally Givertz 2012

The tiny church of Sant’Anna, marked in the bottom left-hand corner of the map above.  The church dates from 1580.  I have added a link under 'useful links' to the Comunità Montagna Centro Cadore website, which gives more details about the church and Perarolo in general.

Finally… a personal announcement.  Sally, my editor, and I were married on the 27^th September in a small ceremony at the registry office in Banff, a few miles from Gardenstown (known as ‘Gamrie’ to locals)where we live.  Sally has photos and more – if you would like to view please follow the link ‘My editor’s blog’ to the right of this post.

Note: This blog supports readers of The Door of Perarolo, a historical novel set in Cadore, Italy in the early nineteenth century.  You may examine feedback from readers in the UK here and in the US here.  The Door of Perarolo is a Kindle ebook comprising 140 chapters.  It can be downloaded from Amazon sites worldwide.  The launch post of this blog gives further details.  The second post provides links to maps, etc.

Vauluisant Abbey

Vauluisant Abbey was founded in 1127 by Cistercian monks in the forests of the Alain valley.  The river Alain flows south past Vauluisant to join with the waters of the Vanne, a tributary of the Yonne, the broad stately river that flows through Sens.

Map showing the location of Vauluisant Abbey in Yonne

The abbey provided work for foresters, and as a young man Xavier Fortin, himself a forester’s son, worked in the woods surrounding Vauluisant Abbey.  

Letellier de Louvois’ 1692 plan of Vauluisant Abbey

The Alain provided water for the fish farm (to the right of the plan above).  A dovecote (the tower to the left) with a rotating cone of ladders at its centre allowed the monks to collect eggs for the kitchen.  Also to be found within the grounds were orchards and vegetable gardens.  Before Fortin’s arrival at the abbey the monks there, over the centuries, had enjoyed periods of expansion and prosperity, these interrupted by attacks on the abbey – notably during the religious wars of the 16^th C, when the buildings were looted on several occasions.   During the Revolution, the monks were thrown out of the abbey, the latter becoming a vast demolition site.

Vauluisant in present times

Photograph © Peter Alexander Gray 2009

Much restoration has taken place since those times.  I would like very much to express my gratitude to Madame Demoulin, the present owner, and her wonderful team of guides, for giving me a private tour of the grounds and buildings of Vauluisant Abbey during my visit there in 2009.

Note: This blog supports readers of The Door of Perarolo, a historical novel set in Cadore, Italy in the early nineteenth century.  You may examine feedback from readers in the UK here and in the US here.  The Door of Perarolo is a Kindle ebook comprising 140 chapters.  It can be downloaded from Amazon sites worldwide.  The launch post of this blog gives further details.  The second post provides links to maps, etc.

Xavier Fortin

Le Grand Cerf (left of picture), in the Rue de Lyon, Sens.

The main protagonist of The Door of Perarolo is a Frenchman, Xavier Fortin.  Fortin’s father was a forester, who died in Xavier’s infancy.  Shortly afterwards the surviving members of the family, Mama, Lucien and Xavier, moved to Sens (in the district of Yonne).  His mother worked in the kitchen of a coaching inn there, Le Grand Cerf.  The photograph (above) of the Rue de Lyon was taken around the end of the 19^th C.  A low wall is visible at the bottom left hand corner of the image.  Its function was to prevent people (possibly having had too much hospitality during an evening spent in Le Grand Cerf) falling into the waters of the abreuvoir on the far side.  The latter was a place for the watering of coach horses arriving at the inn.  On the opposite side of the street was La Bouteille, another inn (a man wearing a white apron stands in the entrance).  It is interesting to speculate what they might be thinking.  Did they know by that time that the coming of the railways would cause the demise of the old coaching inns?

Elephants from a circus passing through Sens watering in the abreuvoir.

The abreuvoir close by Le Grand Cerf (left).  I owe a debt of gratitude to Bernard Brouse of the Société Archéologique de Sens for assisting me in locating Le Grand Cerf, and I am grateful also for his subsequent kindness in sending me French newspaper cuttings relating to the inn when it was still functional. 

Looking into Sens from Le Grand Cerf

Photograph © Peter Alexander Gray 2009

Today the abreuvoir has been filled in.  This is the view looking into the beautiful city of Sens, seen from the spot where it was sited, outside Le Grand Cerf,.  The old town walls that were there in Fortin’s time have, like the abreuvoir, gone, though some of the buildings from the period remain.  A small plaque can be seen above the top window of the building on the right.   It shows evidence of the passage of Russian troops and cavalry through Sens en route to Paris.

Cossack bullet marks from February 1814.

Photograph © Peter Alexander Gray 2009

Le Grand Cerf still stands, but in modern times has been converted into apartments.  The Rue de Lyon has been renamed the Rue du Général de Gaulle.

Note: This blog supports readers of The Door of Perarolo, a historical novel set in Cadore, Italy in the early nineteenth century.  You may examine feedback from readers in the UK here and in the US here.  The Door of Perarolo is a Kindle ebook comprising 140 chapters.  It can be downloaded from Amazon sites worldwide.  The launch post of this blog gives further details.  The second post provides links to maps, etc.