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These entertainments were a noted feature of Venetian life, and the subject of much scandalous comment among visitors from beyond the Alps. The nuns of the stricter orders were as closely cloistered as elsewhere; but in the convents of Santa Croce, Santa Chiara, and a few others, mostly filled by the daughters of the nobility, an unusual liberty prevailed.

Much snow had fallen since yesterday, but it had stopped now, the sky was clear, and the moon was riding. The sight of the familiar place brought back all my anxieties. The day on the Col of the Swallows was wiped out of my memory, and I saw only the inn at Santa Chiara, and heard Wake's hoarse voice speaking of Mary.

At Naples Don John found a fleet at anchor under the command of Don Alvaro de Bazan, first marquis of Santa Cruz, of whom much was to be heard in the future in his capacity as Admiral of Castile. Here also he received from the hands of Cardinal Granvelle a consecrated banner sent to him by the Pope at a solemn ceremony in the church of the Franciscan Convent of Santa Chiara.

The talk was trivial and chiefly concerned with the progress of the barracks the legate was building and the fine new road from the middle of the city to the Church of Santa Chiara, which he intended should be called the Via Gambara, but which, despite his intentions, is known to-day as the Stradone Farnese.

The king was buried with all solemnity in the church of Santa Chiara, which he had himself founded and dedicated to the Holy Sacrament, enriching it with magnificent frescoes by Giotto and other precious relics, among which is shown still, behind the tribune of the high altar, two columns of white marble taken from Solomon's temple.

'You know your duty best, he said gravely. 'But you must help me. I must catch him at Santa Chiara, for it is a business of life and death. Is there a car to be had? 'There is mine. But there is no chauffeur. Chelius took him. 'I can drive myself and I know the road. But I have no pass to cross the frontier. 'That is easily supplied, he said, smiling.

His food was plain; he took no comfits, and drank no wine, except drinks of pomegranate, cherry, or apples. After dinner he heard causes, and gave sentence in the Latin tongue. Then he would visit the nuns of Santa Chiara or watch the young men of Urbino at their games, using the courtesy of perfect freedom with his subjects.

The guardian's faith in this miraculous witness to her sainthood, the gentle piety of the men and women who knelt before it, checked all expressions of incredulity. We abandoned ourselves to the genius of the place; forgot even to ask what Santa Chiara was sleeping here; and withdrew, toned to a not unpleasing melancholy.

The marquis's widowed sister Chiara Gonzaga, Duchess of Montpensier, also kept up an active correspondence with the Moro at this time, and warned him repeatedly of the intrigues against him that were going on at the French court, and of the dangers he had to fear from Trivulzio and the Venetians.

Thus, although no woman has suffered the death penalty in New York County in twenty years, the average number of convictions for crime is practically the same for women as for men in proportion to the number indicted. The last unreversed conviction of a woman for murder in the first degree was that of Chiara Cignarale, in May, 1887. Her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.