and
deposed him from his duchy. The Duke appealed against this sentence to
the Diet of Ratisbon, and, pending the Diet's decision, made a journey
of pleasure to France, where the Grand Monarch named him generalissimo
of the French forces in Italy, though he never commanded them. He
came back to Mantua after a little, and built himself a splendid
theatre,--the cheerful Duke.

But his end was near. The French and Austrians made peace in 1707; and
next year, Monferrato having fallen to Savoy, the Austrians entered
Mantua, whence the Duke promptly fled. The Austrians marched into
Mantua on the 29th of February, that being leap-year, and Ferdinand
came back no more. Indeed, trusting in false hopes of restoration
held out to him by Venice and France, he died on the 5th of the July
following, at Padua,--it was said by poison, but more probably of sin
and sorrow. So ended Ducal Mantua.

The Austrians held the city till 1797. The French Revolution took
it and kept it till 1799, and then left it to the Austrians for two
years. Then the Cisalpine Republic possessed it till 1802; and then it
was made part of the Kingdom of Italy, and so continued twelve years;
after which it fell again to Austria. In 1848, there was a revolution,
and the Austrian soldiers stole the precious silver case that held
the phial of the true blood. Now at last it belongs to the Kingdom
of Italy, with the other forts of the Quadrilateral--thanks to the
Prussian needle-gun.

End of Project Gutenberg's Italian Journeys, by William Dean Howells

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALIAN JOURNEYS ***

***** This file should be named 14276.txt or 14276.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.net/1/4/2/7/14276/

Produced by Ted Garvin, Carla Kruger and the PG Online Distributed
Proofreading Team

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered tradem