nts within the
doomed city--the wide waters of the lagoon laved its shores in
benediction, like a baptismal charm upon the fair front of Venice,
against which the Curse threatened impotently.

At the centre of this superb and daring court sat a friar, trained from
his childhood up in the customs, traditions, and beliefs of his Church
and of his order--a reverent practitioner in her fasts and sacraments,
simple in his habits as a hermit-monk, faithful in his religious duties
as the most punctilious priest in Rome, sure in his faith that God would
uphold the right, and asserting, without compromise, that right was on
the side of Venice.

What a stay for rulers who fortified their every position by some appeal
to precedent--who would punctiliously know the source and interpretation
of every law upon which they rested!

Above all, what a stay for the simple people who, in these days of
bewildering conflict, knew not what to believe!

Would Masses go on, and the church doors be open and the sacraments
continue? Might they still take their brides and baptize their little
ones, and follow their dead to burial, and sign the sign of the cross,
in token of the favor of heaven--as loyal sons of the Church?

And would the Madre Beata--blessed guardian of this Virgin City--still
smile upon them from all the separate shrines of Venice?

Should the labor and the imprecation of this simple people go on until
the evening in their wonted flow, and should nothing fail them of the
benedictions they had known?

It was a mystery; but threatening Rome was far and unfamiliar, and
Venice they knew--present, protecting, peremptory--impossible to
disobey.

Before the commands of the angry Pontiff could reach the heads of the
orders in Venice, people, priests, and prelates throughout the dominions
were forewarned; they must continue in every accustomed practice of
their religion; they might neither receive nor publish any minatory
papers--these must be instantly brought to the government, under
severest penalties.

Offending prelates were brought from distant sees to meet the
displeasure of the Republic; hesitating priests were silently hastened
to decision by scaffolds, looming suddenly within their precincts. While
leaflets--expressly prepared to disaffect the Venetians--proclaiming
that no obedience was due from a people to its prince under censure;
that all vows, contracts, and duties between man and man, husband and
wife, children