directing the arms of the Crusaders against a Christian prince. (Daru,
liv. iv. ch. iv. viii.)] and betrayed her religion.

SECTION IX. And yet, in the midst of this national criminality, we shall
be struck again and again by the evidences of the most noble individual
feeling. The tears of Dandolo were not shed in hypocrisy, though they
could not blind him to the importance of the conquest of Zara. The habit
of assigning to religion a direct influence over all _his own_ actions,
and all the affairs of _his own_ daily life, is remarkable in every great
Venetian during the times of the prosperity of the state; nor are
instances wanting in which the private feeling of the citizens reaches
the sphere of their policy, and even becomes the guide of its course
where the scales of expediency are doubtfully balanced. I sincerely trust
that the inquirer would be disappointed who should endeavor to trace any
more immediate reasons for their adoption of the cause of Alexander III.
against Barbarossa, than the piety which was excited by the character of
their suppliant, and the noble pride which was provoked by the insolence
of the emperor. But the heart of Venice is shown only in her hastiest
councils; her worldly spirit recovers the ascendency whenever she has
time to calculate the probabilities of advantage, or when they are
sufficiently distinct to need no calculation; and the entire subjection
of private piety to national policy is not only remarkable throughout the
almost endless series of treacheries and tyrannies by which her empire
was enlarged and maintained, but symbolized by a very singular
circumstance in the building of the city itself. I am aware of no other
city of Europe in which its cathedral was not the principal feature. But
the principal church in Venice was the chapel attached to the palace of
her prince, and called the "Chiesa Ducale." The patriarchal church,
[Footnote: Appendix 4, "San Pietro di Castello."] inconsiderable in size
and mean in decoration, stands on the outermost islet of the Venetian