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I mwn by Cam! Freut

NEW FOSCARI.

the happiness of Foscari was the death of three of his sons, within eight years after his assumption of the ducal authority. Though the stability of his family was much shaken, his enemies did not for many years venture to carry into execution the schemes which they had formed for his destruction. The signal successes in war which distinguished his government, and which added to the republic Brescia, Bergamo, Ravenna, and a great part of Lombardy, silenced for a time the voice of envy and opposition. At length, in the year 1445, the opportunity was afforded for inflicting upon the heart of the venerable doge an incurable wound. In that year Bevilacqua, a Florentine exile, instigated, without doubt, by the enemies of the Foscari, secretly denounced Jacopo Foscari to the state inquisitors of Venice, for having received presents from Filippo Visconti, Duke of Milan. The rank and station of the accused could not protect him from the cruel severity with which all state criminals were treated in Venice, and the son of the doge, like the meanest servant of the republic, was subjected to the question, and rigorously tortured. Although no confession could be wrung from him, he was pronounced guilty by the voice of his father, and was banished for life to Napoli di Romania. On his voyage to the place of his exile, he fell sick at Trieste in consequence of the sufferings he had endured. In consideration of his health, the government of Venice were with difficulty prevailed upon by his father to permit the place of his exile to be changed, and to allow him to retire to Treviso, under the condition of his presenting himself every morning before

the governor of that place. Here he was joined by his wife, the daughter of Leonardo Contarini.

For five years Jacopo Foscari remained at Treviso gradually recovering from the effects of his Venetian tortures, until a fresh opportunity occurred to the enemies of his house of renewing their inhuman persecution. In the year 1450, Almoro Donato, chief of the Council of Ten, was assassinated; and as a servant of Jacopo Foscari had been seen on the day of the crime being committed at Venice, Foscari himself was suspected of having been privy to the commission of it. The servant being seized was put to the question, but no confession affecting the honour of his master could be wrung from him. Jacopo Foscari was then ordered to return to Venice, and was for the second time subjected to the utmost severity of the question. Though nothing but a denial of the imputed crime could be forced from him, he was condemned to be banished to Candia, and a reward was directed to be bestowed upon the informer who had denounced him to the state. Within a short period afterwards, a man of abandoned character, whose name was Nicolao Erizzo, confessed on his death-bed that he was the assassin of Donato.

In vain did the Foscari protest against the injustice of detaining a citizen in exile, when the crime for which he was banished had been confessed by another. The inexorable Council of Ten refused to recal their sentence, and the younger Foscari, broken in health and in spirit, continued to languish out his years in exile. That exile became at length so insupportable to him, that he ad

dressed a letter to the Duke of Milan, imploring his good offices with the Venetian senate, and intreating him to intercede for a remission of his sentence. The spies who surrounded Foscari immediately carried this letter to the Council of Ten, and the unfortunate writer was once more summoned to appear as a criminal at Venice. For the third time he underwent the horrible process to which he had before been subjected. In the midst of his tortures he stated that he had written the letter to the duke, with the intention that it should fall into the hands of the Venetian government, knowing that he should be immediately recalled to Venice as a criminal, where he might once more behold his wife and his parents. Upon this confession his sentence of banishment was confirmed, and it was ordered in addition that he should be imprisoned for the space of one year. His request to be permitted to see his relatives was granted, but the interview was directed to take place in one of the public halls of the ducal palace. There, over his tortured form his mother and his wife wept, but the doge, even in this trying moment, preserved the stern dignity of the sovereign. When his son, shrinking from the solitude of the prison to which his emaciated frame was about to be conveyed, implored his father to procure for him the privilege of remaining in his own house, saying, "Messer Padre, vi prego che procuriate per me acciochè io torni a casa mia;” the doge replied, "Jacopo, va e obbedisci a quello che vuole la terra, e non cercar più oltre." The younger Foscari did obey the cruel voice of his country; but scarcely had he reached the place of his exile, than, worn out by his sufferings, he expired.

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