earlier days had been abbot of the monastery of San Michele, was
indignant that the friar who had thwarted the papacy should lie
buried in the convent which he himself had formerly ruled, and
this feeling took shape, first, in violent speeches at Rome, and
next, in brutal acts at Venice. The monks broke and removed the
simple stone placed over the remains of Father Paul, and when it
was replaced, they persisted in defacing and breaking it, and
were only prevented from dragging out his bones, dishonoring them
and casting them into the lagoon, by the weight of the massive,
strong, well-anchored sarcophagus, which the wise foresight of
his admirers had provided for them. At three different visits to
Venice, the present writer sought the spot where they were laid,
and in vain. At the second of these visits, he found the
Patriarch of Venice, under whose rule various outrages upon
Sarpi's memory had been perpetrated, pontificating gorgeously
about the Grand Piazza; but at his next visit there had come a
change. The monks had disappeared. Their insults to the
illustrious dead had been stopped by laws which expelled them
from their convent, and there, little removed from each other in
the vestibule and aisle of the great church, were the tombs of
Father Paul and of the late Patriarch side by side; the great
patriot's simple gravestone was now allowed to rest unbroken.

Better even than this was the reaction provoked by these
outbursts of ecclesiastical hatred. It was felt, in Venice,
throughout Italy, and indeed throughout the world, that the old
decree for a monument should now be made good. The first steps
were hesitating. First, a bust of Father Paul was placed among
those of great Venetians in the court of the Ducal Palace; but
the inscription upon it was timid and double-tongued. Another