"To know Rome is to have assisted at the councils of destiny!" This cryof a more famous traveller must have struggled for expression in Odo'sbreast as the great city, the city of cities, laid her irresistible holdupon him. His first impression, as he drove in the clear evening lightfrom the Porta del Popolo to his lodgings in the Via Sistina, was of aprodigious accumulation of architectural effects, a crowding of centuryon century, all fused in the crucible of the Roman sun, so that eachstyle seemed linked to the other by some subtle affinity of colour.

　　Nowhere else, surely, is the traveller's first sight so crowded withsurprises, with conflicting challenges to eye and brain. Here, as hepassed, was a fragment of the ancient Servian wall, there a new stuccoshrine embedded in the bricks of a medieval palace; on one hand a loftyterrace crowned by a row of mouldering busts, on the other a tower withmachicolated parapet, its flanks encrusted with bits of Roman sculptureand the escutcheons of seventeenth-century Popes. Opposite, perhaps, oneof Fuga's golden-brown churches, with windy saints blowing out of theirniches, overlooked the nereids of a barocco fountain, or an old housepropped itself like a palsied beggar against a row of Corinthiancolumns; while everywhere flights of steps led up and down to hanginggardens or under archways, and each turn revealed some distant glimpseof convent-walls on the slope of a vineyard or of red-brown ruinsprofiled against the dim sea-like reaches of the Campagna.

　　Afterward, as order was born out of chaos, and he began to thread hisway among the centuries, this first vision lost something of itsintensity; yet it was always, to the last, through the eye that Romepossessed him. Her life, indeed, as though in obedience to such asetting, was an external, a spectacular business, from the wildanimation of the cattle-market in the Forum or the hucksters' trafficamong the fountains of the Piazza Navona, to the pompous entertainmentsin the cardinals' palaces and the ever-recurring religious ceremoniesand processions. Pius VI., in the reaction from Ganganelli's democraticways, had restored the pomp and ceremonial of the Vatican with thereligious discipline of the Holy Office; and never perhaps had Rome beenmore splendid on the surface or more silent and empty within. Odo, attimes, as he moved through some assemblage of cardinals and nobles, hadthe sensation of walking through a huge reverberating palace, decked outwith all the splendours of art but long since abandoned of men. Thesuperficial animation, the taste for music and antiquities, all thedilettantisms of an idle and irresponsible society, seemed to him toshrivel to dust in the glare of that great past that lit up every cornerof the present.

　　Through his own connections, and the influence of de Crucis, he saw allthat was best not only among the nobility, but in that ecclesiasticallife now more than ever predominant in Rome. Here at last he was face toface with the mighty Sphinx, and with the bleaching bones of those whohad tried to guess her riddle. Wherever he went these "lost adventurers"walked the streets with him, gliding between the Princes of the Churchin the ceremonies of Saint Peter's and the Lateran, or mingling in thecompany that ascended the state staircase at some cardinal's levee.

　　He met indeed many accomplished and amiable ecclesiastics, but it seemedto him that the more thoughtful among them had either acquired theirpeace of mind at the cost of a certain sensitiveness, or had takenrefuge in a study of the past, as the early hermits fled to the desertfrom the disorders of Antioch and Alexandria. None seemed disposed toface the actual problems of life, and this attitude of caution orindifference had produced a stagnation of thought that contrastedstrongly with the animation of Sir William Hamilton's circle in Naples.

　　The result in Odo's case was a reaction toward the pleasures of his age;and of these Rome had but few to offer. He spent some months in thestudy of the antique, purchasing a few good examples of sculpture forthe Duke, and then, without great reluctance, set out for Monte Alloro.

　　Here he found a changed atmosphere. The Duke welcomed him handsomely,and bestowed the highest praise on the rarities he had collected; butfor the moment the court was ruled by a new favourite, to whom Odo'scoming was obviously unwelcome. This adroit adventurer, whose name wassoon to become notorious throughout Europe, had taken the old prince byhis darling weaknesses, and Odo, having no mind to share in the excessesof the precious couple, seized the first occasion to set out again onhis travels.

　　His course had now become one of aimless wandering; for prudence stillforbade his return to Pianura, and his patron's indifference left himfree to come and go as he chose. He had brought from Rome--that albergod'ira--a settled melancholy of spirit, which sought refuge in suchdistractions as the moment offered. In such a mood change of scene was anecessity, and he resolved to employ the next months in visiting severalof the mid-Italian cities. Toward Florence he was specially drawn by thefact that Alfieri now lived there; but, as often happens after suchseparations, the reunion was a disappointment. Alfieri, indeed, warmlywelcomed his friend; but he was engrossed in his dawning passion for theCountess of Albany, and that lady's pitiable situation excluded allother interests from his mind. To Odo, to whom the years had brought anincreasing detachment, this self-absorption seemed an arrest in growth;for Alfieri's early worship of liberty had not yet found its destinedchannel of expression, and for the moment his enthusiasms had shrunk tothe compass of a romantic adventure. The friends parted after a few daysof unsatisfying intercourse; and it was under the influence of thisfinal disenchantment that Odo set out for Venice.

　　It was the vintage season, and the travellers descended from theApennines on a landscape diversified by the picturesque incidents of thegrape-gathering. On every slope stood some villa with awnings spread,and merry parties were picnicking among the vines or watching thepeasants at their work. Cantapresto, who had shown great reluctance atleaving Monte Alloro, where, as he declared, he found himself as snug asan eel in a pasty, was now all eagerness to press forward; and Odo wasin the mood to allow any influence to decide his course. He had aninvaluable courier in Cantapresto, whose enormous pretensions generallyassured him the best lodging and the fastest conveyance to be obtained,and who was never happier than when outwitting a rival emissary, orbribing a landlord to serve up on Odo's table the repast ordered inadvance for some distinguished traveller. His impatience to reachVenice, which he described as the scene of all conceivable delights, hadon this occasion tripled his zeal, and they travelled rapidly to Padua,where he had engaged a burchiello for the passage down the Brenta. Here,however, he found he had been outdone at his own game; for the servantof an English Duke had captured the burchiello and embarked his nobleparty before Cantapresto reached the wharf. This being the season of thevilleggiatura, when the Venetian nobility were exchanging visits on themainland, every conveyance was in motion and no other boat to be had fora week; while as for the "bucentaur" or public bark, which was just thengetting under way, it was already packed to the gunwale with Jews,pedlars and such vermin, and the captain swore by the three thousandrelics of Saint Justina that he had no room on board for so much as ahungry flea.

　　Odo, who had accompanied Cantapresto to the water-side, was listening tothese assurances and to the soprano's vain invectives, when awell-dressed young man stepped up to the group. This gentleman, whoseaccent and dress showed him to be a Frenchman of quality, told Odo thathe was come from Vicenza, whither he had gone to engage a company ofactors for his friend the Procuratore Bra, who was entertaining adistinguished company at his villa on the Brenta; that he was nowreturning with his players, and that he would be glad to convey Odo sofar on his road to Venice. His friend's seat, he added, was near Oriago,but a few miles above Fusina, where a public conveyance might always befound; so that Odo would doubtless be able to proceed the same night toVenice.

　　This civil offer Odo at once accepted, and the Frenchman thereuponsuggested that, as the party was to set out the next day at sunrise, thetwo should sup together and pass the intervening hours in suchdiversions as the city offered. They returned to the inn, where theactors were also lodged, and Odo's host having ordered a handsomesupper, proposed, with his guest's permission, to invite the leadingmembers of the company to partake of it. He departed on this errand; andgreat was Odo's wonder, when the door reopened, to discover, among theparty it admitted, his old acquaintance of Vercelli, the Count ofCastelrovinato. The latter, whose dress and person had been refurbished,and who now wore an air of rakish prosperity, greeted him with evidentpleasure, and, while their entertainer was engaged in seating the ladiesof the company, gave him a brief account of the situation.

　　The young French gentleman (whom he named as the Marquis deCoeur-Volant) had come to Italy some months previously on the grandtour, and having fallen a victim to the charms of Venice, had declaredthat, instead of continuing on his travels, he meant to complete hiseducation in that famous school of pleasure. Being master of his ownf............