aining in the common Venetian dialect the words:

Il Dose Falier della bella muier,
I altri la gode e lui la mantien.

(The Doge Falieri, the husband of the beautiful lady; others kiss her,
and he--he keeps her.)

Old Falieri burst into a violent fit of passion, and swore that the
severest punishment should overtake the man who had been guilty of this
audacious offence. As he cast his eyes about they fell upon Michele
Steno standing beneath the balcony in the Square, in the full light of
the torches; he at once commanded his guards to arrest him as the
instigator of the outrage. This command of the Doge's provoked a
universal cry of dissent; in giving way to his overmastering rage he
was offering insult to both Seignory and populace, violating the rights
of the former, and spoiling the latter's enjoyment of their holiday.
The members of the Seignory left their places; but old Marino Bodoeri
mixed among the people, actively representing the grave nature of the
outrage that had been done to the head of the state, and seeking to
direct the popular hatred upon Michele Steno. Nor had Falieri judged
wrongly; for Michele Steno, on being expelled from the Duke's balcony,
had really hurried off home, and there written the above-mentioned
slanderous words; then when all eyes were fixed upon the artificial
fire, he had fastened the strip of paper to the Doge's seat, and
withdrawn from the gallery again unobserved. He maliciously hoped it
would be a galling blow for them, for both the Doge and the Dogess, and
that the wound would rankle deeply--so deeply as to touch a vital part.
Willingly and openly he admitted the deed, and transferred all blame to
the Doge, since he had been the first to give umbrage to _him_.

The Seignory had been for some time dissatisfied with their chief, for
instead of meeting the just expectations of the state, he gave proofs
daily that the fiery warlike courage in his frozen and worn-out heart
was merely like the artificial fire which bursts with a furious rush
out of the rocket-apparatus, but immediately disappears in black
lifeless flakes, and has accomplished nothing. Moreover, since his
union with his young and beautiful wife (it had long before leaked out
that he was married to her directly after attaining to the Dogate) old
Falieri's jealousy no longer let him appear in the character of heroic
captain, but rather of _vechio Pantalone_ (old fool); hence it was that
the Se