go further, for the love of God, and launch fifty galleys at her own expense on condition of receiving the half of all the conquests that were made by land and sea. Nothing remained but to win the consent of the Great Council and ask a formal ratification from the people. Full ten thousand persons assemble in “the chapel of San Marco, the fairest that ever was,” and the Doge recommends them to hear the Mass, and to pray God’s counsel concerning the request of the envoys. It will be seen that all is practically accomplished before the question is put to the people or God’s grace asked on the undertaking, but no item of the formality is omitted. The envoys are sent for by the Doge that they may themselves repeat their request humbly before the people, and they came into the church “much stared at by the crowd who had never seen them.” Again the appeal is made, Jofroi de Villeharduin taking up the word by the agreement and desire of the other envoys. We can picture the strange thrill that ran through the great multitude as that single voice broke the silence of St. Mark’s with its burden of passionate tribute to the greatness of Venice: “‘Therefore have they chosen you because they know that no people accustomed to going on the seas have such power as you and your people; and they commanded us to throw ourselves at your feet and not to rise until you had consented to have pity on the Holy Land beyond the seas.’ Now the six messengers knelt, weeping bitterly, and the Doge and all the others cried out with one voice and raised their hands on high and said, ‘We grant it, we grant it.’ And the noise and tumult and lament of it were so great that never had any man known a greater.” Then the Doge himself mounted the lectern and put before the people the meaning of the alliance that had been sought with them in preference to all other peoples by “the best men of the world.” “I cannot tell you,” says Villeharduin, “all the good and fair words that the Doge spoke. At last the matter was ended, and the following day the charters were drawn up and made and sealed.” [Illustration: THE CLOCK TOWER FROM GALLERY OF SAN MARCO.]