Mass in the
presence of the Tzar. It was the priest who assured the mountaineers
that Stephen really was the Tzar. During his reign he repulsed the
Turks and organized the public security, so that a lost purse--the
people said--could easily be recovered. The Republic of Venice tried
on several occasions to poison this excellent ruler; he was ultimately
killed by a barber who came up to Cetinje at the bidding of the Pasha
of Scutari, and, being appointed court barber, cut Stephen's throat.]
As for the Zanovi['c], the elder brother, Count Premislas, was for a
long time in a Finnish prison, on account of his conduct in
gaming-houses; the two younger brothers, Hannibal and Miaslas, were in
Budva in southern Dalmatia in 1797, distributing Venetian
proclamations, after which they rearranged their minds and became
Hungarian agents.

MEASURES TO KEEP THEM APART

The more active of the pair was Miaslas, and by confounding his
machinations and those of other Hungarian adherents von Thurn
overthrew the Hungaro-Croatian party. Thenceforward his greatest care
was diligently to suppress those aspirations of the people of Dalmatia
for a union with their brothers. He had to build the house with the
materials that he found on the spot; the most obvious corner-stone was
that numerically small body of nobles and merchants who had for so
long associated with Venetian officials that they hated to confess
that they were Slavs.

BY ENCOURAGING THE ITALIANIZED PARTY

A minute number of this small body consisted of real Italians, people
who very exceptionally had settled in Dalmatia; but among these rare
families there was not any single one of that extensive class in
Venice which had been presented by their Government with vast domains,
with farms and forests in Dalmatia. Well, the Count of Thurn observed
that this small body of Italianized Slavs would probably not help him
very much, for the Italian culture and the education which they were
so proud of were--it is not unjust to say--nearly always superficial
and not such as to compensate for this party's lack of numbers. But
yet, for what they were worth, he supported them. No doubt the project
which the Archduke Charles evolved in 1880, to transplant
German-Austrians to Dalmatia, would have been preferred by von Thurn.
"These colonists," explained the Archduke, "by their culture and
laboriousness, by their devotion to the House of Habsburg would give
to the Dalmatians a most valua