[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Nuovi Studi._] first simply announced that the aristocratic government yielded up its powers to a provisional Municipality which would sit in the hall of the Great Council; and this was the last public document which began with the words, ‘The Most Serene Prince announces,’ etc. The other informed the public that the provisional Municipality of Venice declared the Great Council to have ‘deserved well of the nation’ because it had abdicated; it thanked particularly the members of the late government which had put down the riot on the night of the twelfth; and it went on to declare a ‘solemn amnesty’ for all political misdeeds, and so forth, and so on. Then came the usual French nonsense about liberty, equality, brotherhood, peace, the rights of man, and the like; all of which might, perhaps, be excused on the ground of mistaken and foolish sentiment, if we did not know that Bonaparte was even then almost in the act of selling his newly found, free, and equal brothers into slavery to Austria, then the most really absolute despotism in Europe. The whole affair was a horrible farce. The new Municipality decided to preserve the Lion of Saint Mark as the national symbol, but for the words ‘Pax tibi Marce’ inscribed on the book under the Lion’s paw were substituted the words ‘Rights and Duties of Man and Citizen.’ The gondoliers observed that Saint Mark had at last turned over a new leaf. The Lion, however, was soon thrown down from his column, and was broken into more than eighty pieces on the pavement. On the fourth [Sidenote: _Rom. x. 219._] of June the tree or liberty was raised in the middle of the Square. Around it were grouped emblems of the sciences and arts. Fagots were heaped up near by, to make a fire in which the Golden Book and the ducal insignia were solemnly burned between two statues representing Freedom and Equality. Inane verses were inscribed on the pedestals of [Sidenote: _Molmenti, Nuovi Studi._] these images. Lest I should be thought to exaggerate their atrociously bad literary quality I give the original Italian. One ran:-- Depono la tirannide, Sollevo l’innocente, Ognor lieto e ridente Il popol mio sarà. The other said:-- Il libro d’ oro abbruciasi L’accende il reo delitto, All’ uom resta il suo dritto La dolce libertà. The Procuratie, both the old and the new, were renamed, according to the revolutionary dictionary, ‘Gallery of Liberty,’ ‘Gallery of Equality.’ [Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Ult. 218; also Tassini, 591._]