charm for him. When the boats swept past San Stai, would not a waving scarf from some balcony show that his wife and young daughter had come out to see him pass, though well aware that the business of the Signoria went before any indulgence at home? Or perhaps he came not by Canereggio but up the Giudecca, with the wind and spray from the sea blowing in his face as he approached the centre of Venetian life He was led by his courtier-attendants to the palace direct – the senators having, as would seem, urgent need of his counsel. As he entered the fatal doors, those complacent friends, to save him any trouble, turned back and dismissed the retainers, without whom a gentleman never stirred abroad, informing them that their master had much to say to the Doge, and might be long detained.
Here romance comes in with unnecessary aggravations of the tragic tale, relating how, not finding the Doge, as he had expected, awaiting him, Carmagnola turned to go to his own house, but was stopped by his false friends, and led, on pretence of being shown the nearest exit, another gloomy way – a way that led through bewildering passages into the prisons. No sentimental Bridge of Sighs existed in these days. But when the door of the strong-room which was to be his home for the rest of his mortal life was opened, and the lively voices of his conductors sank in the shock of surprise and horror, and all that was about to be rushed on Carmagnola's mind, the situation is one which requires no aid of dramatic art. Here, in a moment betrayed out of the air and light, and the freedom which he had used so proudly, this man, who had never feared the face of men, must have realised his fate. At the head of a great army one day, a friendless prisoner the next, well aware that the light of day would never clear up the proceedings against him, or common justice, such as awaits a poor picker and stealer, stand between him and the judges whose sentence was a foregone conclusion. Let us hope that those intimates who had accompanied him thus far slunk away in confusion and shame from the look of the captive. So much evil as Carmagnola had done in his life – and there is no reason to suppose, and not a word to make us believe, that he was a sanguinary conqueror, or abused the position he held – must have been well atoned by that first moment of enlightenment and despair.
During the thirty days that followed, little light is thrown upon Carmagnola's dungeon. He is swallowed up in the darkness, "examined by torture before the Secret Council," a phrase that chills one's blood – until they have the evidence they want, and full confirmation in the groans of the half-conscious sufferer of all imagined or concocted accusations. Sabellico asserts that the proof against him was "in letters which he could not deny were in his own hand, and by domestic testimony," whatever that may mean; and does not mention the torture. "The points of the accusation were these," he adds, – "succour refused to Trevisano, and Cremona saved to Philip by his treacherous abstinence." The fact, however, is more simply stated by Navagero before the trial, that "the Signoria were bent on freeing themselves" from a general who had apparently ceased to be always victorious, after the excellent habit of republics, which was to cut off the head of every unsuccessful leader – thus
