In 1808, I took an active part in the resistance secretly organised at Paris against the tyrannical encroachments Napoleon had made on French freedom. A sudden exile was the consequence. Venice finally became my place of sojourn: I was there received with open arms by many of the ancient noblesse, who were emigrants in that city. No matter to them that my opinions were still more opposed to their own, than even those of the imperious ruler of France: I was his adversary, from whatever cause that enmity might spring.

Some of the most ancient courtiers of the old regime, who yet survive all the chances and changes of the last sixty years, may perhaps remember M. de Marsan as one of the most brilliant officers in the VOL. I.-No. 3.

military domestic establishment of Louis the Sixteenth. His fine figure, his finer manners, his wit, his chivalric courage, would have made him remarked in a court where these happy personal recommendations were less rare; as it was, his rapid advancement in the royal favour was not considered extraordinary. His daughter, born in 1788, had been held at the font, in the name of the Queen of France, by one of her most intimate friends, who, as proxy for the royal sponsor, and at her request, gave the infant her own name of Diane. This girl was the sole surviving child of M. de Marsan; she had been his companion in exile, and through all his troubles, and on her his warmest affections were concentrated. Her mother, Madame de Marsan, had been attached to the service of the sisters of the king of France, and superintended their household in their sorrowful exile at Trieste, where she died some time before her royal friends.

Previously to my abode at Venice, I had made a tour along the coasts of Illyria (whose productions are so little known to our naturalists), for the purpose of obtaining rare subjects. Similarity of tastes found me favour in the eyes of M. de Marsan, who soon loved me with an affection so truly paternal, that if mean pas

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figure was majestic, and considerably developed; and this fulness of person gave her expression of face a still more imposing appearance. One knew not whether that lofty brow expressed pride or sorrow, whether the curve of that beautiful upper lip denoted disdain, or some hidden grief which the energetic mind laboured to conceal. Altogether, the whole contour of her person, and the tone of expression was precisely that which the statuaries of Greece have given to the sister of Apollo, and the coincidence of name and person was celebrated by every sonnetteer in Venice, and they protested that the modern Diana was more cold and icy than the marble representations of the goddess that Italy possessed. Diane de Marsan received this poetical tribute to her charms with indifference she was too proud to be vain; she knew she was one of the most beautiful girls in Venice, and considered such homage as her natural right.

The heart of man, and, above all, that of a lover, is excited by difficulty. I loved the cold Diana with an ardour of passion, that, perhaps, would not have burnt so madly had I ever hoped the icy beauty would have returned fondness.

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Diane did not despise the passion with which she saw she had inspired me: women seldom contemn love that they haveexcited; but I saw that directly she made the discovery, her manner towards me became severe, and her words were guarded. From coldness she passed rapidly to disdain, and from disdain to downright rudeness. I saw she was pursuing the same line of conduct that she had adopted to every lover who had before addressed her, whereby she forced them to give up all hope and their pretensions at once.

I did not show any sullenness, for that would have made me ridiculous as well as miserable. I did not weep; one only weeps when one loses all hope of being united to a woman whose affections have been reciprocal. I swelled with indignation at each new cruelty of the tyrannical

beauty, I bit my hands and lips with rage; I feigned indisposition, occupation, took voyages, to account for the rarity of my visits; I became desperate, played fearfully high-fought a duel-and rushed with frenzy into the rash plots which were agitated by the Carbonari. I rejoiced in the risk of dying in a tragic and appalling manner, that she might feel regret at having driven me to such reckless conduct. In a word, I was mad.

I cannot here enter into a discussion of the principles of Carbonarism; suffice it that the elder school of that faction had for its motto, "Unanimous resistance to the military tyranny of Napoleon, and free and entire recognition of the ancient rights and laws of every nation included in the secret alliance."

Our assemblies were held in a dilapidated old palace in the neighbourhood of the Rialto; I will not name the proprietor, for the high station he now holds in the ministry of a German court has probably cured him of the romantic fantasies of his youth.

Our chief was Mario Cinci, surnamed 'the Doge.' He was descended from that illustrious but wretched Roman family, whose execrable crime freezes all the sources of pity. The elder brother of the far-famed Beatrice, banished, for no wrong of his own committing, from the territories of the Church, sought refuge at an old castle on his family estate, situated on the shores of Tagliamente, where, tradition whispers that he was struck dead by lightning. A vengeful fatality pursued his descendants from generation to generation; and their chronological history presents a tragedy containing more acts than that of the Pelopides. A late representative of the Cinci family had died on the scaffold in the Italian revolution, and the last of this blood, proscribed both by the laws of God and man, only remained in the veins of Mario Cinci.

The youth of Mario had been passed under the most inauspicious combination of circumstances, severed from all assistance and aid of his fellow-creatures. He seldom showed himself in Venice, and whenever he did, he rushed through the most retired streets, accompanied by a groupe of friends almost as mysterious as himself; every person he met, turned back and fled from his presence, fearing to encounter the glances of those dark eyes which seemed to burn with supernatural light. For all this, he was by no means