h which his apparently most
hazardous commission beset him; and that accordingly he betrayed his
employer, and revealed to the Inquisitors a plot which _they_ well knew
to be feigned: and, lastly, that when the ambitious plans of d'Ossuna,
partially discovered before their time by the Spanish government, might
have compromised Venice also if they had been fully elucidated; in order
to blot out each syllable of evidence which could bear, even indirectly,
upon the transaction, so far as she was concerned, it was thought
expedient to remove every individual who had been even unwittingly
connected with it. So fully was this abominable wickedness perpetrated,
that both the accused and the accusers, the deceivers and the deceived,
those either faithless or faithful to their treason, the tools who
either adhered to or who betrayed d'Ossuna, who sought to destroy or to
preserve Venice, were alike enveloped in one common fate, and silenced
in the same sure keeping of the grave. Some few, respecting whose degree
of participation a slight doubt arose, were strangled on the avowed
principle that _all_ must be put to death who were in any way
implicated; others were drowned by night, in order that their execution
might _make no noise_.[13] Moncassin, one of the avowed informers, was
pensioned, spirited away to Cyprus, and there despatched in a drunken
quarrel; and if it be asserted that his companion Balthazar Juven was
permitted to survive, it is because he is the only individual concerning
whose final destiny we cannot pronounce with certainty.[14]

[13] Laurent Brulard, concerning whose fate much discussion
arose, was strangled _par beaucoup de considerations et par une
suite du parti qu'on avrait pris de mettre a mort tons ceux qui
etaient impliques dans cette affaire_. The brothers Desbouleaux
were drowned by night in the _Canale Orfano, pour ne point
ebruiter l'affaire_; and the instructions sent to the Admiral
who was to drown Pierre were to fulfil his commission _avec le
moins de bruit possible_. Accordingly that ruffian, and
forty-five of his accomplices, were drowned at once _sans
bruit_. _Interrogatoire des Accuses_, translated by Daru, vol.
viii. sec. x.

[14] It is believed that Balthazar Juven, and a relation of the
Marechale de Lesdiguieres, who is stated to have escaped
punishment, are one and the same person.

Of one personage who holds an important station