wind, have dashed against the athletic
bodies of janizaries; their turbans, their pelisses, their furs, their
sword-hilts constellated with precious stones,--all the magnificence of
Asia is mingled on their bodies with the floating draperies of antiquity
and with the nudities of Pagan tradition. Their straight gaze is still
tranquil and savage, and the pride and the tragic grandeur of their
expression announce the presence of a life in which man was concentrated
in a few simple passions, having no other thought than that of being
master so that he should not be a slave, and to kill so that he should
not be killed. Such is the spirit of a picture by Veronese which, in the
Hall of the Council of the Ten, represents an old warrior and a young
woman; it is an allegory, but we do not trouble ourselves about the
subject. The man is seated and leans forward, his chin upon his hand,
with a savage air; his colossal shoulders, his arm, and his bare leg
encircled with a cnemis of lions' heads protrudes from his ample
drapery; with his turban, his white beard, his thoughtful brow, and his
traits of a wearied lion, he has the appearance of a Pacha who is tired
of everything. She, with downcast eyes, places her hands upon her soft
breast; her magnificent hair is caught up with pearls; she seems a
captive awaiting the will of her master, and her neck and bowed face are
strongly empurpled in the shadow that encircles them.

Nearly all the other halls are empty; the paintings have been taken into
an interior room. We go to find the curator of the Museum; we tell him
in bad Italian that we have no letters of introduction, nor titles, nor
any rights whatsoever to be admitted to see them. Thereupon he has the
kindness to conduct us into the reserved hall, to lift up the canvases,
one after the other, and to lose two hours in showing them to us.

I have never had greater pleasure in Italy; these canvases are now
standing before our eyes; we can look at them as near as we please, at
our ease, and we are alone. There are some browned giants by Tintoret,
with their skin wrinkled by the play of the muscles, Saint Andrew and
Saint Mark, real colossi like those of Rubens. There is a Saint
Christopher by Titian, a kind of bronzed and bowed Atlas with his four
limbs straining to bear the weight of a world, and on his neck by an
extraordinary contrast, the tiny, soft, and laughing _bambino_, whose
infantine flesh has the delicacy and grace of a flow