While Buonaparte, in these disjointed yet significant threats, stood before the deputies like the Argantes of Italy's heroic poet, and gave them the choice of peace and war with the air of a superior being, capable at once to dictate their fate, he had not yet heard of the massacre of Verona, or of the batteries of a Venetian fort on the Lido having fired upon a French vessel, which had run into the port to escape the pursuit of two armed Austrian ships. The vessel was alleged to have been sunk, and the master and some of the crew to have been killed. The news of these fresh aggressions did not fail to aggravate his indignation to the highest pitch. The terrified deputies ventured to touch with delicacy on the subject of pecuniary atonement. Buonaparte's answer was worthy of a Roman. "If you could proffer me," he said, "the treasures of Peru--if you could strew the whole district with gold, it could not atone for the French blood which has been treacherously spilt."[280] [Sidenote: May 3.] Accordingly, on the 3d of May, Buonaparte declared war against Venice, and ordered the French minister to leave the city; the French troops, and those of the new Italian republics, were at the same time commanded to advance, and to destroy in their progress, wherever they found it displayed, the winged Lion of Saint Mark, the ancient emblem of Venetian sovereignty. The declaration is dated at Palma Nova.[281] It had been already acted upon by the French who were on the Venetian frontier, and by La Hotze, a remarkable character, who was then at the head of the army of the Italian republics of the new model, and the forces of the towns of Brescia and Bergamo, which aspired to the same independence. This commander was of Swiss extraction; an excellent young officer, and at that time enamoured of liberty on the French system, though he afterwards saw so much reason to change his opinions, that he lost his life, as we may have occasion to mention, fighting under the Austrian banners.