The Venetians, living as they did in an almost continuous state of war with one or other of their neighbours, were only too glad of the opportunity of gaining the services of the famous freelance, and gave him the command of their land army, within a very few weeks of his arrival—Foscari, the Procurator of St. Mark, in the meantime pushing forward the alliance with Florence, in season and out of season. In this he was opposed by Mocenigo, the Doge, who, in spite of his eighty years, and even on his deathbed, in the presence of senators and ministers, uttered a solemn and prophetic warning against the war. He must have been a truly wonderful old man, for in that farewell speech of his, delivered from the edge of the grave, he gave a complete and accurate account of the State’s finances, and of its employees’ down to the ships’ caulkers and the manufacturers of fustian, besides remembering the number of gentlemen with incomes between seven hundred and four thousand ducats. At the end of it he told his hearers that if they rejected his advice and quarrelled with Milan, in a very short while they would find themselves under the heel of a military despotism which would take the very coats from their backs—all of which presently came to pass. Finally he warned them against Foscari, whose election to the Dogeship some of them, as he knew, favoured. But his warnings were in vain, for Foscari was elected over Loredano, in a conclave, the account of which is curiously like that of a political convention of to-day—the holding of a number of votes in reserve, the speeches on both sides, the trick by which Foscari irritated his noble old opponent into losing his temper and abusing his adversaries. There is nothing new, of course, under the sun, but it gives one a queer thrill when one comes upon things like these. Soon afterwards Carmagnola was offered the command already referred to, and Filippo, on hearing the news, made an attempt to have his old comrade poisoned, but the agents were caught and executed after having been thoroughly and soundly tortured. There followed visits and embassies from Milan and Florence, the Milanese, gay, careless, assured, the Florentines, grave and soberly clad, leaving no stone unturned, no mine of favour unworked. Carmagnola stalked through the Milanese Masque like a shadow through a field of poppies, and when the Senators, torn between the pleadings of the Florentine Ambassador and the easy, somewhat scornful reply of the Milanese envoy, hesitated, the Condottiere, enraged by the attempt just made upon his life, presented his side of the case, pointing out that Filippo’s apparent strength was only the result of his, Carmagnola’s, victories, and that of his own he had none at all, and openly proclaiming his hatred and scorn both of the Duke and his soldiers.