CHAPTER V _The Visconti_ “Maudire la puissance, c’est blasphémer l’humanité.” The Visconti had now firmly established their dominion in Milan, a dominion destined, in the story of the unstable mediæval governments of Italy, to be equalled by few in duration, and by none in extent. For good or for evil the great city, with her command of the chief passes of the Alps for war and commerce, her wealth as the capital of the vast alluvial plain of Lombardy, was delivered into the hands of a race singularly fitted to use these natural advantages for the creation of a mighty State. The Visconti, as a family, were characterised by exceptional ability and tenacity, and above all, by a subtlety of brain and suppleness of conscience which, under the stress of ambition or necessity, induced a perfidy so quiet and so effectual that the Snake upon their shields became for all Italy a symbol of their political methods, and an object of horror and fear. The vices and weaknesses which ruined other Italian dynasties seemed to have little power over these Milanese princes. Hot and rash of blood in the earlier generations, they rarely allowed passion to override prudence; those of them who did were quickly rooted out. Even that most fruitful disorder in a reigning House, the jealous rivalry of its own members, could not avail to overcome their political coolness or sagacity, or sunder their union against a common enemy. With time this self-control became a habit of cold and passionless judgment, all-powerful in the management of men and States. Even the fatal weakness of remorse and superstitious fear, to which they were all prone, could not undermine them; they were able to parry their consciences, and delay repentance until their successors were old enough to carry on their unscrupulous policy. Nor did the arrogance and cruelty which tyranny bred in this sovereign race prove their overthrow. In spite of its record of crime, no retributive catastrophe ended the dynasty. It died out of itself, and we shall see the last of the Visconti sink into the grave under the burden of an empire greater almost than any other in Italy.