In Venice, one can imagine one's self on the deck of a superb galley lying at anchor, on the _Bucentaur_, where a feast is being given in your honour and from whose side you see wonderful things all around. My inn, the Hôtel de l'Europe, is situated at the entrance to the Grand Canal, opposite the Dogana di Mare, the Giudecca and San Giorgio Maggiore. When one goes up the Grand Canal, between its two rows of palaces, so marked by their centuries, so varied in architectural style, when one moves from the Piazza to the Piazzetta, when one contemplates the basilica and its domes, the Palace of the Doges, the Procuratie Nuove, the Zucca, the Torre dell' Orologio, the campanile of St Mark's and the Column of the Lion, all mingled with the sails and masts of the shipping, the movement of the crowd and the gondolas, the azure of the sky and sea, the freaks of a dream or the frolics of an Oriental imagination present nothing more fantastic. Sometimes Cicéri[79] paints and collects upon a canvas, for the illusions of the stage, monuments of all shapes, all times, all countries, all climates: it is still Venice. Those double-gilt edifices, so profusely embellished by Giorgione[80], Titian, Paul Veronese[81], Tintoretto[82], Giovanni Bellini[83], Paris Bordone[84], the two Palmas[85], are filled with bronzes, marbles, granites, porphyries, precious antiques, rare manuscripts; their internal magic is equal to their external magic; and when, in the bland light that illumines them, one discovers the illustrious names and noble memories attached to their vaults, one cries with Philippe de Comines: "'Tis the most triumphant city that ever I saw!" [Sidenote: The glories of Venice.]