awful and pitiless power, with any real
hope of establishing his own supremacy. His aspect is rather that of a
man betrayed by passion, and wildly forgetful of all possibility in his
fierce attempt to free himself and get the upper hand. One cannot but
feel in that passion of helpless age and unfriendedness, something of
the terrible disappointment of one to whom the real situation of affairs
had never been revealed before; who had come home triumphant to reign
like the doges of old, and, only after the ducal cap was on his head and
the palace of the state had become his home, found out that the
doge--like the unconsidered plebeian--had been reduced to bondage; his
judgment and experience put aside in favor of the deliberations of a
secret tribunal, and the very boys, when they were nobles, at liberty to
jeer at his declining years.

The lesser conspirators, all men of the humbler sort--Calendario, the
architect, who was then at work upon the palace, a number of seamen, and
other little-known persons--were hanged; not like the greater criminals,
beheaded between the columns, but strung up--a horrible fringe--along
the side of the palazzo. The fate of Falieri himself is too generally
known to demand description. Calmed by the tragic touch of fate, the
Doge bore all the humiliations of his doom with dignity, and was
beheaded at the head of the stairs where he had sworn the promissione on
first assuming the office of doge.

What a contrast was this from that triumphant day when probably he felt
that his reward had come to him after the long and faithful service of
years. Death stills disappointment as well as rage, and Falieri is said
to have acknowledged the justice of his sentence. He had never made any
attempt to justify or defend himself, but frankly and at once avowed his
guilt and made no attempt to escape from its penalties. His body was
conveyed privately to the Church of St. Giovanni and St. Paolo, the
great "Zanipolo"--with which all visitors to Venice are familiar--and
was buried in secrecy and silence in the _atrio_ of a little chapel
behind the great church--where no doubt for centuries the pavement was
worn by many feet with little thought of those who lay below. Even from
that refuge his bones have been driven forth, but his name remains in
the corner of the Hall of the Great Council, where--with a certain
dramatic affectation--the painter-historians have painted a black veil
across the vacant place. "This