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With M. Maspero in the Boulak Museum, GOOD-NIGHT, beloved; the light is slowly

A VENETIAN DYNASTY.

From The Contemporary Review. it was a most dangerous post, and one whose occupant was most likely to pay THE names of the doges of Venice, for popular disappointments, to run the though so important in the old chronicles risk of all the conspiracies, and to be of the republic, which are in many cases hampered and hindered by jealous counlittle more than a succession of vitæ du- sellors, and the continual inspection of cum, possess individually few associa suspicious spectators. To change the tions and little significance to the minds doge was always an expedient by which of the strangers who gaze upon the long Venice could propitiate fate and turn the line of portraits under the cornice of the course of fortune; and the greatest misHall of the Great Council, without pausing fortunes recorded in her chronicles are with special interest on any of them, save those of her princes, whose names were perhaps on that corner where, conspicuous to-day acclaimed to all the echoes, their by its absence, the head of Marino Faliero paths strewed with flowers and carpeted ought to be. The easy adoption of one with cloth of gold, but to-morrow insulted figure, by no means particularly striking, and reviled, and themselves exiled or or characteristic, but which served the murdered, all services to the State notoccasion of the poet without giving him withstanding. Sometimes, no doubt, the too much trouble, has helped to throw the overthrow was well deserved; but in other genuine historical importance of a very instances it can be set down to nothing remarkable succession of rulers into ob- but popular caprice. To the latter catescurity. But this long line of sovereigns, gory belongs the story of the family of the sometimes the guides, often the victims, Orseoli, which, at the very outset of auof the popular will, stretching back, with thentic history, sets before us at a touch a clearer title and more comprehensible the early economy of Venice, the relations history than that of most dynasties, into of the princes and the people, the enthu the vague distances of old time, is full of siasms, the tumults, the gusts of popular interest, and contains many a tragic caprice, as well as the already evident episode as striking and more significant predominance of a vigorous aristocracy, than that of the aged prince whose pic-natural leaders of the people. The histuresque story is the one most generally tory of this noble family has the advanknown. There are, indeed, few among them who have been publicly branded with the name of traitor; but, at least in the earlier chapters of the great civic history, there are as many examples of a popular struggle and a violent death as there are of the quiet ending and serene magnificence which seem fitted to the age and services of most of those who have risen to that dignity. They have been in many cases old men, already worn in the service of their country, most of them tried by land and sea mariners, generals, legislators — fully equipped for all the various needs of a sovereignty whose dominion was the sea, yet which was at the same time weighted with all the vexations and dangers of a continental rule. Their elevation was, in later times, a crowning honor, a sort of dignified retirement from the ruder labors of civic use; but in the earlier ages of the republic this was not so, and at all times

tage of being set before us by the first distinct contemporary narrative, that of Giovanni Sagornino-John the deacon, John of Venice, as he is fondly termed by a recent historian. The incidents of their period of power, or at least of that of the two first princes of the name, incidents full of importance in the history of the rising republic, are the first that stand forth, out of the mist of nameless chroni cles, as facts which were seen and re corded by a trustworthy witness.

The first Orseolo came into power after a popular tumult of the most violent description, which took the throne and his life from the previous doge, Pietro Candiano. This event occurred in the year 976, when such scenes were not unusual even in regions less excitable. Candiano was the fourth doge of his name, and had been in his youth associated with his father in the supreme authority, but in consequence of his rebellion and evil be

havior had been displaced and exiled, his | In the midst of the fire and smoke, sur

rounded by those threatening, fierce countenances, with red reflections glittering in every sword and lance-point, reflected over again in the sullen water, he made a last appeal. They had banished him in his youth, yet had relented, and recalled him and made him doge. Would they burn him now, drive him into a corner, kill him like a wild beast? And supposing even that he was worthy of death, what had the child done, an infant who had never sinned against them? This scene, so full of fierce and terrible elements, the angry roar of the multitude, the blazing of the fire behind that circle of tumult and agitation, the wild glare in the sky, and, amid all, the one soft infan. tine figure held up in the father's despair

powerful picture in the long succession of Venetian records made by art.

life saved only at the prayer of the old doge. On the death of his father, how ever, the young prodigal, presumably a favorite with the lower classes, had been acclaimed doge by the rabble. In this capacity he had done much to disgust and alarm the sensitive and proud republic. Chief among his offences was the fact that he had acquired, through his wife, continental domains which required to be kept in subjection by means of a body of armed retainers, dangerous for Venice; and he had been noted as of a proud and haughty disposition from his youth up, and had given frequent offence by his arrogance and exactions. Upon what occasion it was that the popular patience failed at last we are not told, but only that a sudden tumult arose against him, a rushing arms, might afford a subject for a of general fury. When the enraged mob hurried to the ducal palace, they found that the doge had fortified himself there; When this tragedy had ended by the upon which they adopted the primitive murder of both father and child, the choice method of setting fire to the surrounding of the city fell upon Pietro Orseolo as the buildings. Tradition asserts that it was new doge. An ecclesiastical historian of from the house of Pietro Orseolo that the the time speaks of his "wicked ambition " fire was kindled, and some say by his sug- as instrumental in the downfall of his pregestion. It would seem that the crowd decessor, and of his future works of char. intended only to burn some of the surity as dictated by remorse; but we are rounding houses to frighten or smoke out the doge; but the wind was high, and the ducal palace, with the greater part of San Marco, which was then merely the ducal chapel, was consumed, along with all the houses stretching upward along the course of the Grand Canal as far as Santa Maria Zobenigo. This sudden conflagration lights up, in the darkness of that distant age, a savage scene. The doge seized in | his arms his young child, whether with *he hope of saving it or saving himself by means of that shield of innocence, and made his way out of his burning house, through the church, which was also burn ing, though better able, probably, to resist the flames. But when he emerged from the secret passages of San Marco he found that the crowd had anticipated him, and that his way was barred on every side by armed men. The desperate fugitive confronted the multitude, and resorted to that method so often and sometimes so unexpectedly successful with the masses.

disposed to hope that this is merely said, as is not uncommon in religious story, to enhance the merits of his conversion. The secular chroniclers are unanimous in respect to his excellence. He was a man in everything the contrary of the late doge

a man approved of all men, and of whom nothing but good was known. Perhaps if he had any share in the tumult which ended in the murder of Candiano, his conscience may have made a crime of it when the hour of conversion came; but certainly in Venice there would seem to have been no accuser to say a word against him. In the confusion of the great fire and the disorganization of the city, “contaminated" by the murder of the prince, and all the disorders involved, Orseolo was forced into the uneasy seat whose occupant was sure to be the first victim if the affairs of Venice went wrong; and so complete had been the destruction of the doge's palace that he had at once to remove the insignia of office to his own