have perished in spite of their
vows?

4.1.

One bright March day in the year 1783 the bells of Pianura began to ring
at sunrise, and with their first peal the townsfolk were abroad.

The city was already dressed for a festival. A canopy of crimson velvet,
surmounted by the ducal crown and by the "Humilitas" of the Valseccas,
concealed the columns of the Cathedral porch and fell in royal folds
about the featureless porphyry lions who had seen so many successive
rulers ascend the steps between their outstretched paws. The frieze of
ramping and running animals around the ancient baptistery was concealed
by heavy green garlands alternating with religious banners; and every
church and chapel had draped its doorway with crimson and placed above
the image of its patron saint the ducal crown of Pianura.

No less sumptuous was the adornment of the private dwellings. The great
families--the Trescorri, the Belverdi, the Pievepelaghi--had outdone
each other in the display of golden-threaded tapestries and Genoese
velvets emblazoned with armorial bearings; and even the sombre facade of
the Boscofolto palace showed a rich drapery surmounted by the
quarterings of the new Marchioness.

But it was not only the palace-fronts that had put on a holiday dress.
The contagion had spread to the poorer quarters, and in many a narrow
street and crooked lane, where surely no part of the coming pageant
might be expected to pass, the crazy balconies and unglazed windows were
decked out with scraps of finery: a yard or two of velvet filched from
the state hangings of some noble house, a torn and discoloured church
banner, even a cast-off sacque of brocade or a peasant's holiday
kerchief, skilfully draped about the rusty iron and held in place by
pots of clove-pink and sweet basil. The half-ruined palace which had
once housed Gamba and Momola showed a few shreds of colour on its sullen
front, and the abate Crescenti's modest house, wedged in a corner of the
city walls, was dressed like the altar of a Lady Chapel; while even the
tanners' quarter by the river displayed its festoons of coloured paper
and tinsel, ingeniously twisted into the semblance of a crown.

For the new Duke, who was about to enter his capital in state, was
extraordinarily popular with all classes. His popularity, as yet, was
mainly due to a general detestation of the rule he had replaced; but
such a sentiment gives to a new sovereign an impetus which, if he knows
how to