--so
many were the mysteries and fears environing the daily life of these
patricians--that each felt the actual to be safer than the untried
unknown, and surrendered the hope of change, tightening the cords that
upheld the government as their only means of safety.

For there was an under side to all this gold-tissued splendor that was
sometimes laid bare to the people, in spite of the deftness with which
the Signoria stood tirelessly ready to cover up the flaws; and a recent
sad travesty of justice was one of the weird happenings of this time.

Not long since a formal _decree of pardon_ had been solemnly declared
and published throughout Venetia, at which the people stood aghast. For
the man to whom this clemency was graciously extended had been condemned
and executed between the columns of San Marco and San Teodoro, ten years
before--standing accused of conspiracy against the State. There had been
many murmurings when the name of this old patrician, holding honorable
office in service of the Republic, had been erased from the Golden Book;
and he had suffered his ignominious death protesting that the charge was
false, and that all who had aided in his condemnation should die before
the year was out. His dying words had proved a grim prophecy, which,
encouraged by the pressure of the senators, induced the Signoria to
order a re-investigation of his case, whereby the _manes_ of this
dishonored servant of the State were re-instated in that serene favor
now so worthless.

And to-day the people gathered in gloomy silence while the great bell of
the campanile tolled the call to the solemn funeral pageant by which the
Republic offered reparation over the exhumed body of the victim. The
senators, wrapped in mourning cloaks, surrounded the bust of the man
they desired to honor as it was carried in triumph to the church where
the tomb was prepared; and the three _avvogadori_, who had the keeping
of the Golden Book, bore it on a great cushion behind the marble effigy,
the leaf bound open where the name was re-inscribed. Here also walked
the domestics of the re-habilitated noble of Venice--the hatchments that
had been doomed to oblivion freshly embroidered upon their sleeves above
their tokens of crepe. The Doge and the Signoria all took part in this
tragic confession of wrong, doing penance unflinchingly for the sins of
their predecessors; for Venice could be munificent in reparation, not
shrinking from her own humiliation to ap