"Thou
see'st, carina, these matters are not for women to discuss; they cannot
understand; they are questions for the government alone; and well it is
for us that the clergy are out of it, or we might have the spectacle of
a Senate drowned in tears! There will be no war," he declared again,
mistaking the self-control for which she had bravely struggled as an
outcome of his attempts at consolation. "And now, since thou art thy
sweet self again, hath the boy not made the day richer for thee with
some tale of wonder thou wouldst unfold?"
XVI
There was no longer any doubt as to the intention of his Holiness toward
the rebellious spirit of the Most Serene Republic; the Ambassade
Extraordinary which had been appointed to convey to the Holy See the
dutiful congratulations of her devoted Venetian sons, on the accession
of Paul V, had few amenities to report in those lengthy dispatches to
which the Senate listened with a dignity which disdained to show the
least outward trace of irritation or forgetfulness, in a presence so
exasperating as that of the Papal Nuncio, Orazio Mattei.
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