210 ST. MARK’S REST

covetous, first, of fame; secondly, of kingdom; thirdly, of pillars of marble and granite, such as these that you see; lastly, and quite principally, of the relics of good people.¹ Such an “appetite,” glib-tongued Cockney friend, is not wholly “commercial.”

4. To the nation in this religiously covetous hunger, Baldwin appealed, being then captive to the Saracen. The Pope sent letters to press his suit, and the Doge Michael called the State to council in the Church of St. Mark. There he, and the Primate of Venice, and her nobles, and such of the people as had due entrance with them, by way of beginning the business, celebrated the Mass of the Holy Spirit. Then the Primate read the Pope’s letters aloud to the assembly; then the Doge made the assembly a speech. And there was no opposition party in that parliament to make opposition speeches;² and there were no reports of the speech next morning in any Times or Daily Telegraph. And there were no plenipotentiaries sent to the East, and back again.³ But the vote passed for war.

The Doge left his son in charge of the State; and sailed for the Holy Land, with forty galleys and twenty-eight beaked ships of battle-“ships which were painted with divers colours,”* far seen in pleasant splendour.

5. Some faded likeness of them, twenty years ago, might be seen in the painted sails of the fishing boats which lay crowded, in lowly lustre, where the development

* The Acts of God, by the Franks. Afterwards quoted as G. (Gesta Dei⁴).

¹ [Compare Val d’ Arno, § 28 (Vol. XXIII. p. 24).]

² [It appears, however, in fact that strong opposition speeches were made: see the summary of them in H. F. Brown’s Venice: an Historical Sketch, p. 89 (1895 edition).]

³ [This was written early in 1877, and refers to the abortive Conference of Constantinople (December 1876 to January 1877) which preceded the Russo-Turkish war. Lord Salisbury was the British Plenipotentiary.]

⁴ [Ed. 1 adds: “Again, see Appendix, Art. 1.” The words are “Naves qui ante coloribus variis picturate erant, splendore amśno prospectantes.” They are quoted by Romanin (vol. ii. p. 37 n.), and occur in vol. i. p. 431 of the Gesta Dei (see p. 209 n.), in the course of the Historia Hierosolymitana by Foucher de Chartres (Fulcherius Carnotensis, 1058-1127), the historian of the first crusade.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]