The Grimaldi, who
assumed sovereignty, did not take possession of Monaco till much
later.
The last Cane of the elder branch vanished from Venice thirty years
before the fall of the Republic, condemned for various crimes more or
less criminal. The branch on whom this nominal principality then
devolved, the Cane Memmi, sank into poverty during the fatal period
between 1796 and 1814. In the twentieth year of the present century
they were represented only by a young man whose name was Emilio, and
an old palace which is regarded as one of the chief ornaments of the
Grand Canal. This son of Venice the Fair had for his whole fortune
this useless Palazzo, and fifteen hundred francs a year derived from a
country house on the Brenta, the last plot of the lands his family had
formerly owned on _terra firma_, and sold to the Austrian government.
This little income spared our handsome Emilio the ignominy of
accepting, as many nobles did, the indemnity of a franc a day, due to
every impoverished patrician under the stipulations of the cession to
Austria.
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