h at that period desolated the town,
and it has been perpetuated to the present day, without any
alteration, except in its details--with none in its purely
charitable spirit. It is composed of seventy-two brothers,
called chiefs of the watch, who are each in service four months
in the year. Of these seventy-two brothers, thirty are priests,
fourteen gentlemen, and twenty-eight artists. To these, who
represent the aristocratic classes and the liberal arts, are
added 500 labourers and workmen, who may be said to represent
the people.

"The seat of the brotherhood is in the place _del Duomo_. Each
brother has there, marked with his own name, a box enclosing a
black robe like that of the _penitents_, with openings only for
the eyes and mouth, in order that his good actions may have the
further merit of being performed in secret. Immediately that
the news of any accident or disaster is brought to the brother
who is upon guard, the bell sounds its alarm, once, twice, or
thrice, according to the gravity of the case; and at the sound
of the bell every brother, wherever he may be, is bound to
retire at the instant, and hasten to the rendezvous. There he
learns what misfortune or what suffering has claimed his pious
offices; he puts on his black robe and a broad hat, takes the
taper in his hand, and goes forth where the voice of misery has
called him. If it is some wounded man, they bear him to the
hospital; if the man is dead, to a chapel: the nobleman and the
day labourer, clothed with the same robe, support together the
same litter, and the link which unites these two extremes of
society is some sick pauper, who, knowing neither, is praying
equally for both. And when these brothers of mercy have quitted
the house, the children whose father they have carried out, or
the wife whose husband they have borne away, have but to look
around them, and always, on some worm-eaten piece of furniture,
there will be found a pious alms, deposited by an unknown hand.

"The Grand-duke himself is a member of this fraternity, and I
have been assured that more than once, at the sound of that
melancholy bell, he has clothed himself in the uniform of
charity, and penetrated unknown, side by side with a
day-labourer, to the bed's head of some dying wretch, and that
his presence had afterwards been