before us gorgeous paintings by Veronese and Zelotti, and exquisite marbles, but not a trace of the sombre and awful associations of the place. Yet it was in this room that Marino Faliero stood undismayed to hear his doom pronounced, while a terrific storm was raging without, in the midst of which his fellow-conspirators were being strangled in the dungeons of the palace. Hither came Carmagnola, agonising from the torturechamber, to learn his doom, and to go forth at dawn, gagged and blindfolded, to die between the fatal columns in the Piazzetta. Here Carrara of Padua was charged with having conspired to poison the cisterns of Venice, and was strangled with his two sons in a dungeon; and here the Ten watched with omniscient eye not only over the city itself, but over every spot where the Winged Lior held sway, and to this hall were brought delinquents from all parts to receive stern judgment and secret execution.

Close by the Hall of the Council of Ten is the Cabinet of the Three, where, concealed, the terrible inquisitors sat and listened while their secretary questioned a witness or accused person, and recorded the answers. We have hinted already at the state of terror in which Venice lived while the Three held sway. It is difficult to select instances of their mode of procedure, but a couple of stories will give some idea of the system of vigilance and punishment prevailing under State inquisitors and a secret police.

"A foreigner of distinction, having had his pocket picked, indulged in some harsh expressions against the police. Some days afterwards he was quitting Venice, when his gondola was stopped, and he was requested to step into another. Monsieur,' said a grave personage, ‘are you not the Prince de Craon?' 'Yes.' 'Were you not robbed last Friday?' 'Yes.' 'Of what sum?' Five hundred ducats.' 'Where were they?' In a green purse.' And do you suspect any one of the robbery?' 'A valet de place.' 'Should you recognise him?' 'Yes.' Then the interrogator pushes aside a dirty cloak, discovers a dead man holding a green purse in his hand, and adds, 'You see, sir, that justice has been done. There is your money, take it; and remember that a prudent man never sets foot again in a country where he has underrated the wisdom of the Government."

"A Genevese painter, working in a church at Venice, had a quarrel with two Frenchmer, who began abusing the Government. The next day he was summoned before the inquisitors, and on being asked if he should recognise the persons with whom he had quarrelled, he replied in the affirmative, protesting that he had said nothing but what was in honour of the Signory. A curtain is drawn, and he sees the two Frenchmen with the marks of strangulation round their necks. He is sent away half dead with fright, with the injunction to speak neither good nor evil of the Government. 'We have no need of your apologies, and to approve us is to judge.''

"

From the Cabinet of the Three, secret doors and narrow stairways lead to the Piombi, small prison cells under the leaden roof, in one of which Silvio Pellico was so long confined; and to the Pozzi, dungeons in the lowest foundations of the palace. These cells have not been much used since the sixteenth century, when the new prison was built, which is connected by the Bridge of Sighs with the Ducal Palace.

* Quoted in an article on "The Republic of Venice: its Decline and Fall," Quarterly Review, No. 274.

The Bridge of Sighs-immortalised by Byron, and which Howells, the American writer, designates as "that pathetic swindle "-is best seen from the Ponte della Paglia —where, by-the-by, Pietro Tradonico, the thirteenth Doge, was barbarously murdered by the populace, when on his way to attend vespers in the Church of St. Zaccaria. The bridge is not in itself ghastly or dreary, and derives its name from the fact that criminals were brought from the prison across this bridge in order to hear their sentences and meet their doom. The arrangements of the prison were spoken of approvingly by John Howard the philanthropist, who inspected it in the course of his visits to the prisons of Europe.

There are many other halls and chambers in the Ducal Palace, gorgeous in decoration and rich in historical interest, but those we have referred to bring us most closely to the heart of the story of Venice. Let us come now once more into the Piazza San Marco, and there examine some of the memorials of the past and see some of the life of the present.

There is no more magnificent square in Europe or in the world than the Piazza San Marco. Napoleon said of it, "La place Saint Marc est un salon, auquel le ciel seul est digne de servir de voute!" It is magnificent in itself; it is grand in its historical associations, as almost every event in the history of the Republic was notified or celebrated here; and it is crowded with objects of present interest. We have already referred to the palaces of the Procurators of St. Mark covering the whole of the north and south of the Piazza; at the western extremity stands the Royal Palace, erected by Napoleon in 1809. Beneath these palaces, forming a promenade on three sides of the Piazza, are arcades, in which are shops as tempting as any in Europe, and cafés such as Florian's, known to every lounger in the world. In the great open space hundreds of pigeons assemble to be fed at two o'clock at the expense of the State, in grateful remembrance of services their ancestors rendered to Admiral Dandolo in conveying important messages when he was besieging Candia in the thirteenth century. In the afternoon or evening, according to the season of the year, a band plays in the Piazza, and all Venice turns out to promenade. Here, too, on Sundays the Tombola, or Lottery, is held-an amusement or business which has a strange fascination for the people. A writer, speaking of the Tombola as it was not many years ago, says: "The very mendicants speculated, and a kind of superstition existed which gave rise to an incessant, unwearying, elaborate, often fraudulent study on the finding or revealing of lucky numbers. They were dreamed of by night; the Virgin was supplicated to point them out; the cradles of infants were watched for signs; the coffins of the dead were opened in search of some mysterious indication; and when any of the ticket-holders died, lively were the rejoicings in this camp of Mammon. Their ages, and days, and hours of birth were eagerly inquired and adopted as promises of luck." Here, too, the Carnival of Venice-once so celebrated, but now rapidly degenerating is held, and certainly no place in Italy-not even the Via di Po in Turin, admirable as that is-can vie with the Piazza in means for gorgeous illuminations and decorations.

As we have said, the Piazza is the heart of Venice, through which all the life of the city circulates, and it is amusing to watch in the morning the stream of people