his deplorable morals; but it was neither from Plato nor from Homer that he had learned to plunder the government of his country. One of his contemporaries, Gratarol, described him as possessing ‘the highest of talents, the most arrogant of characters, and the most deceptive of faces.’ It was commonly reported in Venice that when he had been Bailo at Constantinople he had taken advantage of the war between Turkey and Russia, under Catherine the Great, to enrich himself in a shameful manner, and the ninety thousand sequins he made on that occasion afterwards served him, according to popular report, for bribing the Barnabotti in the Great Council in order that the forty-one electors chosen might be favourable to him. He was certainly not the inventor of this plan, but he is generally said to have just outdone his predecessors in generosity, without overstepping the limits of strict economy. The general belief is that he bought three hundred votes at fifteen sequins each, which was certainly not an excessive price. It appears, too, that he distributed money to the people in order to soothe the irritation his candidacy caused. If all these accusations were not clearly proved, they were at least the subject of contemporary satire. A certain priest in particular wrote biting verses on him, in Venetian dialect, describing the righteous anger of the late Marco Foscarini’s ghost at the election of such a successor. The shade of the honourable [Sidenote: _Malamani._] man tears off the ducal insignia in disgust, and bitterly reproaches Venice. ‘Ah, foolish Venice!’ it exclaims, ‘a Renier is Doge of our country, one who with ribald heart and iniquitous words sought to undo that tribunal which defends our country from all evil! Ah, mad Venice! Now indeed I do repent me of having been Doge one year! Strike my name from the series of the Doges, for I disdain to stand among traitors.’ After his election Paolo Renier had his first ‘osella’ coined with a peculiarity in the superscription which irritated the public. The words ran: ‘Paulus Reinerius principis munus,’ his name being in the nominative case, a grammatical mistake which had always been regarded as the special privilege of kings and emperors. He made money of everything, by selling posts, franchises, and licenses to beg at the door of the Basilica of Saint Mark. The Dogess was [Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Ult._] not a person likely to increase her husband’s popularity, for she had been a rope-dancer, and never appeared at public ceremonies. As I have explained elsewhere, it was the Doge’s niece who did the honours of the palace, Dame Giustina, who was beloved and esteemed by all Venetians, but ‘the Delmaz,’ as the Doge’s wife was called, interfered in a hundred details of the administration.