Steno, full of mortification and rage, sought his revenge, and before leaving the palace, managed to write, on the chair of the Doge, a most insulting taunt, which naturally roused him to fury. Steno was brought before the Forty, and sentenced to prison for two months and to exile for a year. This lenient punishment was regarded by Faliero as a more serious cause of complaint than the insult itself had been, and he demanded that Steno should come before the Ten and receive a severe sentence,--if not death, at least perpetual banishment. But the age of the culprit, who might have been Faliero's grandson, and the consideration that his offence was a folly rather than a crime, precluded such severity; and the old Doge was reminded that before the court he was but the equal of the poorest gondolier on the canals. {142} Faliero cursed the patricians and the laws which had made the head of the Republic so helpless; and just then the admiral of the Arsenal complained to him of an insult which he had received, and demanded redress. Faliero replied with bitterness that he could not obtain for others the justice which was denied him. One thing led to another, until the admiral darkly hinted at a revenge which would overturn the present condition of affairs and give the Doge more power. The two men soon understood each other, and when they parted were already conspirators against the State. Immediately they made a plan for a revolution; each sought to enlist his friends in the conspiracy, and soon about twenty were pledged to its aid. The months that had passed since Faliero had been but a figure-head to that republic in which he had hitherto been a leading spirit, had brought him continual mortification and suffering. He had returned to Venice in proud triumph, having received the highest honor that the State could confer, which should be the crown and glory of his life. He had come to rule, but he had found the palace little less than a prison, his power a myth, and his condition a sort of gilded bondage. His opinion was dominated by that of the Ten; and even the giovinastri who paraded their youth and their finery in the Broglio could laugh him to ridicule, and insult him unpunished. The plot of the Doge and his sympathizers was badly and hastily devised. They believed that in ten days six hundred and fifty poniards would be at their service; and on the 15th of April, amid cries of "Viva il Principe Faliero," the members of the obnoxious order were to be sacrificed as they gathered in the Piazza, the tocsin having been rung, and a false report of the arrival of a Genoese fleet off the Lido occupying their minds. Not a suspicion of the insurrection existed, and even the {143} followers of the chief conspirators did not know what they were to do; they were simply to obey when commanded.