Corinne, who was a believer in presentiments, and now made presages of everything, said to Nevil: "Is not the melancholy that I feel on entering this place a proof that some great misfortune will befall me here?" As she said this, she heard three reports of cannon, from one of the Isles of the Lagune--she started, and inquired the cause of a gondolier--"It is a woman taking the veil," he said, "at one of those convents in the midst of the sea. The custom here is, that the moment such vow is uttered, the female throws the flowers she wore during the ceremony behind her, as a sign of her resigning the world, and the firing you have just heard announces this event." Corinne shuddered. Oswald felt her hand grow cold in his, and saw a deathlike pallor overspread her face.--"My life!" he cried, "why give this importance to so simple a chance?"--"It is not simple," she replied. "I, too, have thrown the flowers of youth behind me."--"How! when I love thee more than ever? when my whole soul is thine?"--"The thunders of war," she continued, "elsewhere devoted to victory or death, here celebrate the obscure sacrifice of a maiden--an innocent employment for the arms that shake the world with terror: a solemn message from a resigned woman to those of her sisters who still contend with fate." CHAPTER VIII. The power of the Venetian government, during its latter years, has almost entirely consisted in the empire of habit and association of ideas. It once was formidably daring,--it has become lenient and timorous: hate of its past potency is easily revived, and easily subdued, by the thoughts that its might is over. The aristocracy woo the favour of the people, and yet by a kind of despotism, since they rather amuse than enlighten them; an agreeable state enough, while the common herd are afforded no pleasures that can brutify their minds, while the government watches over its subjects like a sultan over his harem, forbidding them to meddle with politics, or presume to form any judgment of existing authorities, but allowing them sufficient diversion, and not a little glory. The spoils of Constantinople enrich the churches; the standards of Cyprus and Candia float over the Piazza; the Corinthian horses delight the eye; and the winged lion of St. Mark's appears the type of fame. The situation of the city rendering agriculture and the chase impossible, nothing is left for the Venetians but dissipation. Their dialect is soft and light as a zephyr. One can hardly conceive how the people who resisted the league of Cambray should speak so flexible a tongue: it is charming while expressive of graceful pleasantry, but suits not graver themes; verses on death, for instance, breathed in these delicate and almost infantine accents, sound more like the descriptions of poetic fable. The Venetians are the most intelligent men in Italy; they think more deeply, though with less ardent fancies than their southern countrymen; yet, for the most part,