use it, will carry him a long way toward success; and among those
in the Duke's confidence it was rumoured that he was qualified not only
to profit by the expectations he had raised but to fulfil them. The last
months of the late Duke's life had plunged the duchy into such political
and financial disorder that all parties were agreed in welcoming a
change. Even those that had most to lose by the accession of the new
sovereign, or most to fear from the policy he was known to favour,
preferred the possibility of new evils to a continuance of present
conditions. The expertest angler in troubled waters may find waters too
troubled for his sport; and under a government where power is passed
from hand to hand like the handkerchief in a children's game, the most
adroit time-server may find himself grasping the empty air.

It would indeed have been difficult to say who had ruled during the year
preceding the Duke's death. Prime ministers had succeeded each other
like the clowns in a harlequinade. Just as the Church seemed to have
gained the upper hand some mysterious revulsion of feeling would fling
the Duke toward Trescorre and the liberals; and when these had
attempted, by some trifling concession to popular feeling, to restore
the credit of the government, their sovereign, seized by religious
scruples, would hastily recall the clerical party. So the administration
staggered on, reeling from one policy to another, clutching now at this
support and now at that, while Austria and the Holy See hung on its
steps, awaiting the inevitable fall.

A cruel winter and a fresh outbreak of the silkworm disease had
aggravated the misery of the people, while the mounting extravagance of
the Duchess had put a last strain on the exhausted treasury. The
consequent increase of the salt-tax roused such popular fury that Father
Ignazio, who was responsible for the measure, was dismissed by the
panic-stricken Duke, and Trescorre, as usual, called in to repair his
rival's mistake. But it would have taken a greater statesman than
Trescorre to reach the root of such evils; and the new minister
succeeded neither in pacifying the people nor in reassuring his
sovereign.

Meanwhile the Duke was sinking under the mysterious disease which had
hung upon him since his birth. It was hinted that his last hours were
darkened by hallucinations, and the pious pictured him as haunted by
profligate visions, while the free-thinkers maintained that he was the
dup