The first physician in Milan, a man eminent for charity in the exercise of his profession as well as skill, and therefore highly venerated even by the populace, was assaulted by a mob, and obliged to fly for his life, upon no other provocation than his belief in the reality of the disease. [Illustration: From a Medal of Cardinal Borromeo.] But unfortunately incredulity was of no avail to check its progress; and at last the magistrates were compelled to place guards and barriers at the gates, and to exclude all persons and all articles coming from suspected places. Not only the sick, but all persons living in the same house with them, were removed to the lazaretto, or, if suffered to remain, were placed under the charge of an officer appointed to ensure their perfect seclusion. Those whose health was suspected were allowed to remain under similar but somewhat lighter restraint. And having done what was possible in the way of precaution with little benefit, for the mortality increased fearfully, the authorities turned for help to St. Charles Borromeo, the late Archbishop of Milan, whose body, enclosed in a crystal shrine, formed the most precious treasure of the cathedral. There was at least a propriety in applying to him in preference to any other saint in the calendar; for his liberality, and intrepidity, and zeal in his pastoral duties were eminently displayed in 1576, when Milan laboured under the same calamity. It was determined therefore, with the permission of the church, to carry these relics in solemn procession round the city, and to implore the continued patronage and intercession of the saint, who in life had zealously watched over the temporal as well as the spiritual welfare of his people. It was ordered that no expense be spared to increase the splendour of the rite, and testify due reverence to the hallowed remains; and accordingly the streets through which the pomp was to pass were cleared, and cleansed, and decked with tapestry and other ornaments, as if for a festival. The houses of the poor, and those which the pestilence had left untenanted, were furnished at the expense of the city, or by the piety of some wealthy neighbour. The latter should rather have been left in their desolation, bare and mournful, to testify to the extent of the distress, and implore, more touchingly than words could do it, the divine protection. The shrine was borne through the chief streets surrounded by the priesthood, the nobles, and the magistrates, barefoot, and in penitential dresses, and followed by a multitude: and for a moment all minds were abstracted from their own and the common danger, to gaze upon the mitred skull, visible through its transparent covering, whose eyeless sockets and grinning jaws might have seemed to mock the hopes so fondly and vainly entertained.