Furthermore, a fortnight before the signing of these preliminaries, he had suborned a vile wretch, Salvatori by name, to issue a proclamation purporting to come from the Venetian authorities, which urged the people everywhere to rise and massacre the French.

It was issued on April 5th, though it bore the date of March 20th.

At once the Doge warned his people that it was a base fabrication, But the mischief had been done.

On Easter Monday (April 17th) a chance affray in Verona let loose the passions which had been rising for months past: the populace rose in fury against the French detachment quartered on them: and all the soldiers who could not find shelter in the citadel, even the sick in the hospitals, fell victims to the craving for revenge for the humiliations and exactions of the last seven months.[76] Such was Easter-tide at Verona--_les Paques veronaises_--an event that recalls the Sicilian Vespers of Palermo in its blind southern fury.
The finale somewhat exceeded Bonaparte's expectations, but he must have hailed it with a secret satisfaction.

It gave him a good excuse for wholly extinguishing Venice as an independent power.