offered a pension of fifteen hundred ducats, and gave him a day to consider his answer. On the morrow, he would say neither yea nor nay, and complained of the unconstitutional suggestion. A second deputation was no more successful. It was then intimated to the Doge that he must resign, and leave the palace within a week, or suffer the confiscation of his property. [Illustration: A FRUIT STALL.] On Sunday the 23rd of October, in the presence of the Ten and the chief officers of State, he silently drew the ducal ring from his finger. A _Capo_ broke it in pieces and removed the ducal cap from his head. The discrowned Foscari was bid to retire to his home in S. Pantaleone. As the Councillors were leaving the room he noticed that one of the Quarantia lingered awhile and gazed pityingly upon him. He called him, took his hand and asked: “Whose son art thou?” “I am the son of Marin Memo,” was the reply. “He is my dear comrade,” said the Doge. “Prithee bid him come to see me, for it will be a precious solace to me: we will visit the monasteries together.” Early on the morrow Francesco Foscari left his apartments leaning on a crutched stick accompanied by his brother Marco, his only suite a few sobbing kinsmen and servants. As they neared the principal staircase Marco said: “It is well, your Serenity, that we go to the landing-stage by the other stairway which is covered.” “Nay,” answered Foscari, “I will descend by the same stairs up which I mounted to the Dogeship.” Stripped of his honours, forsaken by his Councillors, bent beneath the weight of his eighty-four years and the long tenure of a great office, the humiliated Foscari tottered down those steps in silence, which more than the third of a century before he had climbed, erect, exultant, full of hope, amid the acclamation of a whole city. [Illustration: BUST OF FRANCESCO FOSCARI]