added modern furniture, family portraits, and many objects of _virtu_.
The series of apartments on the first floor above the vestibule is
extensive and superb; and though the _tout ensemble_ is more
characteristic of a modern French princess than of an ancient
Venetian family, it was pleasant to see at least one of the palazzos
of the ancient republic handsomely furnished, and having the
appearance of cheerful occupation. Among the portraits are some that
could scarcely have been expected to survive the Revolution of
1792--as Louis XIV.; Louis XV. when a boy; some of the princesses,
aunts of Louis XVI.; also the dauphin, father of the latter monarch.
There is likewise a beautiful cabinet of Marie Antoinette. Such
articles, we presume, must have been obtained from the palaces at the
downfall of royalty, and preserved by various accidents till the
restoration, when the royal family would of course be eager to recover
them at whatever expense. We saw here a portrait of the Duchesse, with
her infant son, standing in widow's weeds, beside the bust of her
assassinated husband; also portraits of the Due de Bourdeaux, his
wife, the Duchesse's present husband, and her younger set of children.
In a glass-case were the gilt spurs of Henri IV. The Duchesse gives
gay parties in winter, when the full suite of rooms must have a fine
effect.

The churches of Venice are numerous--about a hundred in all, being one
for every thousand souls, while I am told there is a priest for every
hundred. We visited eight or ten of the most remarkable; and so
bewildering was their magnificence, and so confounding the multitude
of fine things shewn in them, that if I had not taken note of
everything at the moment, I must have had only one confused idea of
something supra-mundanely fine. A great church in Venice is usually a
structure of pure marble, with a dome or tower. The interior is one