Especially
our power is 'quae tendunt ad finem supranaturalem.' (Over those things
which tend to a supernatural end.)"
All thoughts of festivity in the City of the Sea were over; the strength
of her patricians--men and women--was concentrated on this momentous
quarrel with the Holy See, which they would indeed have put off were it
possible, but which, having come upon them, they would bear with
conquering pride. All through those dark December days the pressure
tightened; there were mutterings of the coming storm, against which the
rulers of Venice were planning defense; there was an oppression, like a
sense of mental sirocco, in the air--a vague terror of the unknown among
the people, gathering like the blighting breath which precedes some
fierce tornado--while in the palace of San Marco, the Doge, Marino
Grimani, Chief of the Republic in revolt against the Holy See, lay
dying!
The Lady Marina Giustiniani had forgotten how to smile. When her little
one lifted his rosy baby face to hers she smothered him in caresses,
that he might not see her tears; and her husband failed to note the
change, for the Senate sat in unbroken session and the permitted
absences from the Council Chambers of the Republic barely sufficed for
sleep.
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