the old Duke had specially recommended him.  On learning this, the Marquess urged him to present his letter of introduction on arriving at Bellocchio, where the Procuratore, who was noted for hospitality to strangers, would doubtless insist on his joining the assembled party.  This Odo declined to do; but his curiosity to see Mirandolina made him hope that chance would soon throw him in the Procuratore’s way.

Meanwhile supper was succeeded by music and dancing, and the company broke up only in time to proceed to the landing-place where their barge awaited them.  This was a private burchiello of the Procuratore’s with a commodious antechamber for the servants, and a cabin cushioned in damask.  Into this agreeable retreat the actresses were packed with all their bags and band-boxes; and their travelling-cloaks being rolled into pillows, they were soon asleep in a huddle of tumbled finery.

Odo and his host preferred to take the air on deck.  The sun was rising above the willow-clad banks of the Brenta, and it was pleasant to glide in the clear early light past sleeping gardens and villas, and vineyards where the peasants were already at work.  The wind setting from the sea, they travelled slowly and had full leisure to view the succession of splendid seats interspersed with gardens, the thriving villages, and the poplar-groves festooned with vines.  Coeur-Volant spoke eloquently of the pleasures to be enjoyed in this delightful season of the villeggiatura.  “Nowhere,” said he, “do people take their pleasures so easily and naturally as in Venice.  My countrymen claim a superiority in this art, and it may be they possessed it a generation ago.  But what a morose place is France become since philosophy has dethroned enjoyment!  If you go on a visit to one of our noblemen’s seats, what do you find there, I ask?  Cards, comedies, music, the opportunity for an agreeable intrigue in the society of your equals?  No—­but a hostess engaged in suckling and bathing her brats, or in studying chemistry and optics with some dirty school-master, who is given the seat of honour at table and a pavilion in the park to which he may retire when weary of the homage of the great; while as for the host, he is busy discussing education or political economy with his unfortunate guests, if, indeed, he is not dragging them through leagues of mud and dust to inspect his latest experiments in forestry and agriculture, or to hear a pack of snuffling school-children singing hymns to the God of Nature!  And what,” he continued, “is the result of it all?  The peasants are starving, the taxes are increasing, the virtuous landlords are ruining themselves in farming on scientific principles, the tradespeople are grumbling because the nobility do not spend their money in Paris, the court is dull, the clergy are furious, the Queen mopes, the King is frightened, and the whole French people are yawning themselves to death from Normandy to Provence.”