"If ever the monuments of a splendid Past might inspire men of a later generation with a sense, a hallowing sense, of the glory and dignity of which those monuments were the products and witnesses, it would be in that Hall of the Great Council, when those representatives of free Venice met there to determine her fate. Let a deputy look where he would, he saw reminders of the strength and beauty of the State which his ancestors had raised to a unique position among the nations of the world. Venice, though built on the shifting mud where sea-gulls made their nests, yet had, through the indomitable courage of her sons, a foundation more permanent than that of rock-born cities; she counted her life, not by decades nor by {296} generations, but by ages, she had been strong when her neighbors were weak; she had been civilized when Paris and London were but half-barbarous settlements, and the site of Berlin was a morass; in her great days she had bowed neither to pope nor to emperor; and she had ever been so surpassingly beautiful, floating there on the Adriatic for fourteen hundred years, as delicate and wonderful as a nautilus, yet firm as marble and stancher than the stanchest ship. And now, after fifty years of servitude, she was again free, robed in the glory of her incomparable Past, and resolutely facing the strange world and perils upon which she had reawakened. No son of hers on that 3d of July could sit in the Great Hall and not feel that his action, must not only match the solemn exigencies of the Present, but also be worthy of the city to which forty generations of his ancestors had consecrated their lives, and to which Dandolo and Morosini, and many another as just and brave as these, had brought the offering of their individual fame." The Assembly, after listening to all the arguments for and against the measure, voted to unite with Piedmont, and a deputation was sent to announce this decision to Charles Albert. We will not here recount the unhappy failure of this king, nor the armistice by which Piedmont was again placed under the Austrian yoke. It is enough to say that Venice was left alone, that no help came from France or England; and when, on March 27, 1849, news of the fatal defeat of Charles Albert at Novara was brought to the Venetians, with a summons to surrender, they knew that they must rely on themselves alone. The Assembly voted to resist Austria at any cost, and to give unlimited power to Manin. A red flag was unfurled from the Campanile, as a sign that Venice would resist to the death; and a copy of the vote was sent to the Austrians without a word of comment.