Ducal Palace in company with a lay-brother of the convent, and an old
patrician, very infirm and helpless, he was attacked by these
_nuncios_ of the papal court: one of them seized the lay-brother, and
another the patrician, while a third dealt Sarpi innumerable dagger
thrusts. He fell as if dead, and the ruffians made off in the confusion.

Sarpi had been fearfully wounded, but he recovered. The action of the
Republic in this affair is a comforting refutation of the saying that
Republics are ungrateful, and the common belief that Venice was
particularly so. The most strenuous and unprecedented efforts were made to
take the assassins, and the most terrific penalties were denounced against
them. What was much better, new honors were showered upon Sarpi, and
extraordinary and affectionate measures were taken to provide for his
safety.

And, in fine, he lived in the service of the Republic, revered and
beloved, till his seventieth year, when he died with zeal for her good
shaping his last utterance: "I must go to St. Mark, for it is late, and I
have much to do."

Brave Sarpi, and brave Republic! Men cannot honor them enough. For though
the terrors of the interdict were doubted to be harmless even at that
time, it had remained for them to prove the interdict, then and forever,
an instrument as obsolete as the catapult.

I was so curious as to make some inquiry among the workmen on the old
convent ground, whether any stone or other record commemorative of Sarpi
had been found in the demolished cells. I hoped, not very confidently, to
gather some trace of his presence there--to have, perhaps, the spot on
which he died shown me. To a man, they were utterly ignorant of Sarpi,