fortune of our city so willed it that in the space of a few days our empire slipped from our hands; the opportunity has come back to us of recovering what we have lost; by spontaneously facing the changes and chances of fate, we shall prove that our disasters have not been our fault or our shame, but one of those fatal storms which no wisdom and no firmness of man can resist.  If it were permitted us all in one mass to set out for Padua, if we might, without neglecting the defence of our own homes and our urgent public affairs, leave our city for some days deserted, I would not await your deliberation; I would be the first on the road to Padua; for how could I better expend the last days of my old age than in going to be present at and take part in such a victory?  But Venice may not be deserted by her public bodies, which protect and defend Padua by their forethought and their orders just as others do by their arms; and a useless mob of graybeards would be a burden much more than a reenforcement there.  Nor do I ask that Venice be drained of all her youth; but I advise, I exhort, that we choose two hundred young gentlemen, from the chiefest of our families, and that they all, with such friends and following as their means will permit them to get together, go forth to Padua to do all that shall be necessary for her defence.  My two sons, with many a comrade. will be the first to carry out what I, their father and your chief, am the first to propose.  Thus Padua will be placed in security; and when the mercenary soldiers who are there see how prompt are our youth to guard the gates and everywhere face the battle, they will be moved thereby to zeal and alacrity incalculable; and not only will Padua thus be defended and saved, but all nations will see that we, we too, as our fathers were, are men enough to defend at the peril of our lives the freedom and th safety of the noblest country in the world.”

This generous advice was accepted by the fathers and carried out by the sons with that earnest, prompt, and effective ardor which accompanies the resolution of great souls.  When the Paduans, before their city was as yet invested, saw the arrival within their walls of these chosen youths of the Venetian patriciate, with their numerous troop of friends and followers, they considered Padua as good as saved; and when the imperial army, posted before the place, commenced their attacks upon it, they soon perceived that they had formidable defenders to deal with.  “Five hundred years it was since in prince’s camp had ever been seen such wealth as there was there; and never was a day but there filed off some three or four hundred lanzknechts who took away to Germany oxen and kine, beds, corn, silk for sewing, and other articles; in such sort that to the said country of Padua was damage done to the amount of two millions of crowns in movables and in houses and palaces burnt and destroyed.”  For three days the imperial artillery fired upon the town and made in its walls