When it is remembered that Venice really obtained little or no immediate advantage from the battle of Lepanto, her frenzy of triumph may seem exaggerated; yet it was moderate compared with the reception Rome gave to the commander of the Papal fleet, Marcantonio Colonna. The Venetian captain, Sebastian Venier, was not present, and there was not the least personal note in the rejoicings; that, indeed, would have been very contrary to the usual behaviour of the Republic towards her own sons, for if they failed she disowned them or put them to death, and if they succeeded it was her motherly practice to disgrace them as soon as possible, and generally to find an excuse for imprisoning them, lest they should grow dangerous to herself. We cannot help reproaching her for that; yet out of her magnificent past comes back ever that same answer: she succeeded, where others failed. She bred [Illustration: DOOR OF THE CARMINE] such men as Enrico Dandolo, Vittor Pisani, Carlo Zeno, and Sebastian Venier, yet she was never enslaved by one of her own children. Rome served her Cæsar, and her many Cæsars; France, her Bonaparte; Russia, her Ivan Strashny, the Terrible; Spain, her Philip II.; England, her Richard III.--and her Cromwell, Protector and Tyrant. But Venice was never subject to any one Venetian man beyond the time needed to compass his destruction and death, which was never long, and sometimes was awfully brief. Venier did not return to Venice till long after the battle of Lepanto, and his presence was necessary in the Archipelago in order to protect such colonies as were left to the Republic. [Sidenote: _Venier returns in triumph, Palma Giovane; Sala dei Pregadi._] For though the Turks had suffered a disastrous defeat, final in the sense that their advance westwards was checked as effectually as the spreading of the Moorish conquest had been by Charles Martel at Poitiers, yet they were still at the height of their power in Constantinople, and were strong on the eastern side of the dividing line which was now drawn across the Mediterranean, and which marked the eastern limit of Christian domination. When Venier returned, the Turks were absolute masters of the island of Cyprus, and Venice was already beginning to pay what was really a war indemnity, destined to reach the formidable sum of three hundred thousand ducats. As Montesquieu truly says, it looked as if the Turks had been the victors at Lepanto. Three years after that battle Venice was again adorned in her best to greet Henry III. of [Sidenote: _Rom. vi. 341._] France, who visited the city in July 1574, the year of his accession. The King was to make his entry on the eighteenth, and he was requested to stop at Murano on the previous evening, in the [Sidenote: _Horatio Brown, Venetian studies._]