tify the popular
transport; and the fact that the new Duke formed a worthy centre to so
much magnificence was not lost on his splendour-loving subjects. The
late sovereign had so long held himself aloof that the city was
unaccustomed to such shows, and as the procession wound into the square
before the Cathedral, where the thickest of the crowd was massed, the
very pealing of the church-bells was lost in the roar of human voices.

Don Serafino, the Bishop's nephew, and now Master of the Horse, rode
first, on a splendid charger, preceded by four trumpets and followed by
his esquires; then came the court dignitaries, attended by their pages
and staffieri in gala liveries, the marshals with their staves, the
masters of ceremony, and the clergy mounted on mules trapped with
velvet, each led by two running footmen. The Duke rode next, alone and
somewhat pale. Two pages of arms, helmeted and carrying lances, walked
at his horse's bridle; and behind him came his household and ministers,
with their gentlemen and a long train of servants, followed by the
regiment of light horse which closed the procession.

The houses surrounding the square afforded the best point of view to
those unwilling to mix with the crowd in the streets; and among the
spectators thronging the windows and balconies, and leaning over the
edge of the leads, were many who, from one motive or another, felt a
personal interest in the new Duke. The Marchioness of Boscofolto had
accepted a seat in the windows of the Pievepelaghi palace, which formed
an angle of the square, and she and her hostess--the same lady who had
been relieved of her diamond necklace by footpads suspected of wearing
the Duchess's livery--sat observing the scene behind the garlanded
balconies of the piano nobile. In the mezzanin windows of a neighbouring
wine-shop the bookseller Andreoni, with half a dozen members of the
philosophical society to which Odo had belonged, peered above the heads
of the crowd thronging the arcade, and through a dormer of the leads
Carlo Gamba, the assistant in the ducal library, looked out on the
triumph of his former patron. Among the Church dignities grouped about
his Highness was Father Ignazio, the late Duke's confessor, now Prior of
the Dominicans, and said to be withdrawn from political life. Seated on
his richly-trapped mule he observed the scene with impassive face; while
from his place in the long line of minor clergy, the abate Crescenti,
with eyes of