Society of Archeology and History of Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, Bulletin no6 - l975
 
 Author F Beaucour
 
 When it collapsed in 1797, the Republic of Venice had to accept from General Bonaparle a war contribution which included the obligation to deliver to the French Republic naval ammunition, warships and works of art. Before handing over Venice to the Austrians, to whom the Treaty-le Campo-Formio had given it, the French therefore removed what had been attributed to them. It was thus that in January 1798, the Lion Wing of Saint Mark, the emblem of the ancient power of the Republic of Venice, descended from its granite column of the Piazzetta and that the four Horses in gilded bronze that the Venetians had taken in Constantinople in 1204, under Doge Herrri Dondolo, during the looting of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the 4th Crusade, and which they had placed above the peristyle of Saint Mark's Basilica, were won in France. The transport was carried out under the orders of the Picard Emmanuel Perrée de Saint Valery sur Somme