To Sarpi, the Chief Counsellor, had been committed the censorship of the press; and the supervision of those very papers which had been written by friends of the Republic to scatter broadcast in defense of its rights, formed not the least delicate part of his task.  For the government demanded that they should maintain a fine reserve in method, and in spite of examples to the contrary freely given by their opponents, would tolerate neither heresy nor coarseness.  Every detail of this world-renowned quarrel was conducted on the part of Venice with an irreproachable dignity and diplomacy that raised it to the height of a negotiation of State, and it formed no part of the policy of the Republic to tolerate any disbelief in her own loyalty; the Venetians should stand before the world as faithful sons of the Church, bearing unmerited sentence of excommunication.

Then Rome, to make an end of the brilliant flow of pamphlets from Sarpi’s pen, would have lured him from Venice with flattering promises of churchly preferment.  “Nay,” said he, “here lieth my duty; and my work hath not deserved honest favor from a Pope who interpreteth the law with other eyes than mine.”

Meanwhile the schemes of the enemy were tireless for obtaining secret influence within Venetian borders.  Now it was a barefooted friar to be watched for at Mantua, coming with powers plenipotentiary from his Holiness over all the prelates of the rebellious realm; or it might be this same friar, in lay disguise, still armed with those ghostly and secret powers, for whom the trusted servants of Venice were to be on guard.  Or there were disaffected brothers, who had left their convents and were roaming through the land inciting to rebellion, to whom it was needful to teach the value of quiet, however summary the process.  But Venice, by a broad training in intrigue and cunning, joined to her mastery of the finer principles of statesmanship, still remained mistress of the springs of action and wore her outward dignity, and the disappointments were for her adversaries.  But this training was a costly one, for it put a prize on daring, confused the colors of right, and invariably laureled success—­if it did no more specific harm to the State.

Piero Salin had been secretly summoned by the Ten and given an indefinite leave of absence from Venice, together with a large discretionary power in the direction of his wanderings, with certain other passes and perquisites which bespoke a curious confidence in one who had been known for a successful and much dreaded bandit gondolier.  But if the government in its complicated labors had need of tools of various tempers, it had also the wisdom to discern legitimate uses for certain wild and lawless spirits when they were, like Piero, full of daring and resource.