"Si, Signor!" answered he; "c'è pericolo, ma lei mi dice: 'al Lido' e io vò!"

The second time his rarely employed tones were devoted to a far more gallant purpose. Pippo was so much worn out upon some one occasion, when I taxed him beyond what I really suppose such obesity as his could support, that he looked at his oar and seemed as though he were going to hesitate, when a voice from behind the boat encouraged him to effort by-" Andiam! Andiam! Pippo! coraggio per la signora!"

As with all things living or inanimate in Venice, I would give a great deal now to catch a glimpse of Pippo's enormous face, or of his shapeless shape, so much more "like a whale" than anything Polonius ever saw.

And not a word of Titian ?-no! not one !-nor Tintoretto? nor Paolo ? un instant ! I will not even pronounce their names; this would oblige to more.

...

One picture in Venice I would have told you of had I seen it-The Georgione; but the Palazzo Manfrini was undergoing repairs, and we could not be admitted. This picture I had dreamt of from my childhood, from what Byron says of it (as I told you, he pursues you everywhere), and this one alone I could not see. But one I saw. It hangs in the Palazzo Vendramin,* over a doorway, leading from the dining into the first drawing-room. It is the full-length portrait of a lady attired in black. You may

*The Palazzo Vendramin belongs to the Duchesse de Berry. It is one of the most magnificent in Venice. The presence of Her Royal Highness has been found of such benefit to the City of the Sea by the number of strangers which her royal and elegant hospitality has been used to draw thither, that after the siege, the Venetians sent a petition to entreat of her not to desert them.

pass by it without remarking it, but if once your eyes rest upon that face you cannot leave it. It is a strange countenance. Is it beautiful?-I hardly know; it is irregular, but there is what I would almost call a fatal charm about the eyes; she must have been a jettatrice*-from those firmly compressed, chiselled lips only magic spells were made to come: there is something weird about hersomething that would almost make her into a Medea of modern times; yet she was not that. Those strange eyes! even from their inanimate semblance pour forth looks which enthral, and tell of what their resistless power must have been.

"Whom does that portrait represent?" asked I, when I could leave it to rejoin my companions, who were at the end of the enfilade of salons.

"Bianca Capello!!!" was the reply; "it is an original."

No wonder !

Daughter of Venice and her sweet prototype; what Bianca was to Medici, Venice has been to thousands; an absolute enslaver-the thought, the dream of whom was to prompt to acts of mad enterprise, of impossible achieve

ment.

Oh! my old Spanish song!—

66

Ayres Venecianos

Venid y llevadme !"

* A woman who possesses the "evil eye."

CHAPTER XX.

FRANCE IN VENICE.-HENRY V.

As I said, what we came to seek for in Venice was not Venice. It was France. We came to pay the homage of our respect to him who is the last hope of a stricken country.

There are Legitimists of two kinds: those who were born so, have always been so, and, never having examined the question under any other aspect, have often no other reason to offer for so being; and those, who, after a deliberate and dispassionate study of facts, and of all that has happened in France within the last sixty years, have acquired the firm and unalterable conviction, that unless in a return to the principle of Legitimate Monarchy, there is no possible salvation for the country. I belong to the latter class. It has not depended upon me to belong to the former.

As the mere incarnation of a principle, which principle alone can save the country I have learned to look upon as my own, I frankly avow that the individual merits or demerits of the future Monarch seem to me objects of comparative indifference. Royalty in England was not weakened because George IV. was not a pattern of morality, or his brother William IV. a miracle of genius. I therefore began by regarding the Comte de Chambord merely as the impersonation of Monarchy in France. To that impersonation it was, therefore, as to an abstraction, that we desired to tender our allegiance.

Had the honour of a nearer approach to the future Sovereign of France persuaded me that great personal superiority was not to be looked for in him, it would have had no discouraging influence upon my mind-for, I repeat it, he is the mere representative of a principle with which his individual merit can have nothing whatever to do-but in that case, I should have remained silent, nor ever sought by one word of unfounded eulogy to lead the opinion of any one astray. One may be an excellent and devoted subject without undertaking the part of a panegyrist.

Nothing can be of use which is not true. Therefore, in the case I allude to, should nothing have induced me to give a false idea of M. le Comte de Chambord.

Nothing which is true can be wholly without use. Therefore, the contrary of what I have supposed possible being the truth, and the moral and intellectual superiority of M. le Comte de Chambord being incontestible, it not be entirely devoid of utility, that I, the most obscure among the many who recognize, should proclaim it.

may

Although, I repeat it, individual mediocrity could in no

way whatever weaken the salutary influence to be exercised over France by the accession of Henry V. to the throne, at the embodiment of a principle, still there is a peculiar kind of individual merit which may be calculated to reassure those, who in the Sovereign persist in seeing the man. I use the word "peculiar" because in my mind, there is a sort of superiority which, if M. le Comte de Chambord possessed it, might be extremely prejudicial to his cause, and consequently to the country. If M. le Comte de Chambord were afflicted with that restless species of genius, the law of whose existence is constant action, (a quality indicative also in many instances of great superiority,) it would be an immense misfortune, for it would leave no issue open to him but to bear away his Crown at the sword's point—it would inevitably open before him the catalogue of chances. Now, to this, a principle cannot be submitted, and this the Comte de Chambord knows. His superioity is of a different kind, and of a very complex nature; various and often contradictory even as the circumstances in which he may be called upon to act.

The Comte de Chambord owes it to the majesty of the principle he represents, not to doubt for one instant of the eventual recognition of that principle, nor to compromise it by one act of impatience. He perfectly well knows and feels that he is a necessity for France. Tranquil expectancy of the hour, which cannot fail, must be his absolute law;* to fit himself for the discharge of the solemn duties to which he will one day be called, must be his only care.

*The conviction that France must return to monarchy, is, however, based upon the supposition that France is to be saved, and to reassume her once high position among the European nations. France may be condemned to perish, and some day be little better