All hearts were touched by these terrible griefs of the old Foscari, and six months later a full pardon was obtained for the son. But it was too late. He no longer lived to be condemned or forgiven. When this news came, the Doge was eighty-four years old. His courage was gone. He could no longer give heed to public matters, nor could he endure to sit in that court which had tortured and exiled the last of his sons. And so he stayed away; and soon there was a murmur against him, and a complaint that he no longer made a pretence of {183} having authority and of being necessary to the State,--a lie which he was tired of acting. Foscari had more than once proposed to retire, but the Council would not hear of it. Now, however, he was asked to resign his office; and when he did not answer quickly enough to please his persecutors, he was told that if he did not leave the palace within the next eight days, his property would be confiscated. He made no resistance. The ducal ring was drawn from his finger and broken in his presence. The ducal bonnet was taken from his head, and he promised to leave the palace at once. As the deputies left him, Foscari caught the eye of one, Jacopo Memmo, who looked at him with sympathy and compassion. He called him, took his hand, and said, "Whose son art thou?" "I am the son of Marin Memmo." And then the Doge: "He is my dear friend. Tell him from me that it would be sweet to me if he would come to pay me a visit, and go in my bark with me or a little pleasure. We might visit the monasteries." That very day the Doge left the palace with his old brother Marco, followed by his household. Marco said, "It is better to go to the boat by the stair that is covered;" but the old Doge replied, "I will go down by the same stair that I came up when I was made Doge." And then they rowed away to the splendid palace to which Jacopo had taken Lucrezia Contarini sixteen years before,--the house that we may still see on the point of the Grand Canal, where it turns to the east, with the water on two sides, and its fine old gateway on the small canal at the back. Here, in 1574, Francis I. was lodged, it being thought more suited to his royalty than any other in all Venice.