The Great Council met the same day: the electoral machinery was set in motion and on the morrow, the 30th October, Pasquale Malipiero was chosen and proclaimed Doge two hours before sunset. Two days after, on All Saints’ Day, the new Doge, and his Council were at mass at St Mark’s when a messenger came in hot haste with the news that Francesco Foscari was dead. The Councillors gazed mutely at each other. The Ten were convoked and, pricked perhaps by remorse at their severity, voted a magnificent and honourable funeral, the widow protesting against the mockery and declaring that she would sell her dowry to give her lord worthy burial. Wrapped in a mantle of cloth of gold; crowned with the ducal cap; sword by side and spurred with gold, all that remained of the great Doge Foscari lay in state in the hall of the Senate, guarded by four and twenty nobles in scarlet robes to indicate that if the Doge were dead the Signory yet lived. The bier was borne by a picked body of sailors. Pasquale Malipiero, clothed as a simple senator; the officers of State; the clergy; the guilds followed. With solemn pomp the pageant went its way lighted by innumerable tapers along the Merceria and across the Rialto bridge to the Church of the Frari. The sumptuous monument, erected in the choir to his memory, by Ant. Riccio, still testifies to his fame. Those who would gaze on the striking, sensuous features of unhappy Doge Foscari will find his bust in the corridor that leads to the private apartments of the ducal palace, a faithful portrait carved by Bart. Buon. It was rescued when the original group over the Porta della Carta was destroyed in 1797. Tomaso Mocenigo left Venice at peace with a flourishing exchequer: under Foscari it became bankrupt. In ten years the Milanese war had cost seven million sequins. The funds which stood at 60 when it began, sank to 18-1/2 before its close. Her hands tied by the war, Venice had been compelled to look on while Constantinople fell to the Turks. Increased taxes, forced loans, national default and commercial crises: non-payment of salaries, depreciation of real estate, depression of industry and reduction of population--this was the cost of military glory; the dark background to the brilliant and memorable reign of Francesco Foscari. CHAPTER X _The Turkish Terror--Acquisition of Cyprus--Discovery of the Cape Route to India--The French Invasions--The League of Cambrai--Decline of Venice_ “The gods have done it as to all they do Destine destruction, that from thence may rise A poem to instruct posterities.” --_Chapman’s Homer_