the observation of the authorities.  Men had not yet forgotten the fate of the Neapolitan historian, Pietro Giannone, who for daring to attack the censorship and the growth of the temporal power had been driven from Naples to Vienna, from Vienna back to Venice, and at length, at the prompting of the Holy See, lured across the Piedmontese frontier by Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, and imprisoned for life in the citadel of Turin.  The memory of his tragic history—­most of all, perhaps, of his recantation and the “devout ending” to which solitude and persecution had forced the freest spirit of his day—­hovered like a warning on the horizon of thought and constrained political speculation to hide itself behind the study of fashionable trifles.  Alfieri had lately joined the association of the Honey-Bees, and the Professor, at his suggestion, had invited Odo, for whose discretion his friend declared himself ready to answer.  The Honey-Bees were in fact desirous of attracting young men of rank who felt an interest in scientific or economic problems; for it was hoped that in this manner the new ideas might imperceptibly permeate the class whose privileges and traditions presented the chief obstacle to reform.  In France, it was whispered, free-thinkers and political agitators were the honoured guests of the nobility, who eagerly embraced their theories and applied them to the remedy of social abuses.  Only by similar means could the ideals of the Piedmontese reformers be realised; and in those early days of universal illusion none appeared to suspect the danger of arming inexperienced hands with untried weapons.  Utopia was already in sight; and all the world was setting out for it as for some heavenly picnic ground.

Of Vivaldi himself, Alfieri spoke with extravagant admiration.  His affable exterior was said to conceal the moral courage of one of Plutarch’s heroes.  He was a man after the antique pattern, ready to lay down fortune, credit and freedom in the defence of his convictions.  “An Agamemnon,” Alfieri exclaimed, “who would not hesitate to sacrifice his daughter to obtain a favourable wind for his enterprise!”

The metaphor was perhaps scarcely to Odo’s taste; but at least it gave him the chance for which he had waited.  “And the daughter?” he asked.

“The lovely doctoress?” said Alfieri carelessly.  “Oh, she’s one of your prodigies of female learning, such as our topsy-turvy land produces:  an incipient Laura Bassi or Gaetana Agnesi, to name the most distinguished of their tribe; though I believe that hitherto her father’s good sense or her own has kept her from aspiring to academic honours.  The beautiful Fulvia is a good daughter, and devotes herself, I’m told, to helping Vivaldi in his work; a far more becoming employment for one of her age and sex than defending Latin theses before a crew of ribald students.”