For three days nothing more was heard of any of the three, and the Vicenzese scarcely ate, drank, or slept, through anxiety to know what was become of the man in the scarlet cloak, and cap striped green and vermilion.  Jealousy, politics, and piety, at length put their heads together, and, by the evening of the third day, the cavalieri had agreed that he was some rambling actor, or Alpine thief, the statesmen, that he was a spy; and the Dominicans that he was Satan in person.  The women, partly through the contradiction natural to the lovely sex, and partly through the novelty of not having the world in their own way, were silent; a phenomenon which the Italian philosophers still consider the true wonder of the whole affair.

On the evening of the third day a new Venetian governor, with a stately cortege, was seen entering at the Water Gate, full gallop, from Venice:  he drove straight to the podesta’s house, and, after an audience, was provided with apartments in the town-house, one of the finest in Italy, and looking out upon the Piazza Grande, in which are the two famous columns, one then surmounted by the winged lion of St. Mark, as the other still is by a statue of the founder of our faith.

The night was furiously stormy, and the torrents of rain and perpetual roaring of the thunder drove the people out of the streets.  But between the tempest and curiosity not an eye was closed that night in the city.  Towards morning the tempest lulled, and in the intervals of the wind, strange sounds were heard, like the rushing of horses and rattling of carriages.  At length the sounds grew so loud that curiosity could be restrained no longer, and the crowd gathered towards the entrance of the Piazza.  The night was dark beyond description, and the first knowledge of the hazard that they were incurring was communicated to the shivering mob by the kicks of several platoons of French soldiery, who let them pass within their lines, but prohibited escape.  The square was filled with cavalry, escorting wagons loaded with the archives, plate, and pictures, of the government.  The old podesta was seen entering a carriage, into which his very handsome daughter, the betrothed of the proudest of the proud Venetian senators, was handed by the stranger.  The procession then moved, and last, and most surprising of all, the stranger, mounting a charger, put himself at the head of the cavalry, and, making a profound adieu to the new governor, who stood shivering at the window in care of a file of grenadiers, dashed forward on the road to Milan.

Day rose, and the multitude rushed out to see what was become of the city.  Every thing was as it had been, but the column of the lion:  its famous emblem of the Venetian republic was gone, wings and all.  They exclaimed that the world had come to an end.  But the wheel of fortune is round, let politicians say what they will.  In twelve months from that day the old podesta was again sitting in