United States or Curaçao ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
All unconscious of their existence, the young bride of the powerful regent rode at her lord's side and entered the wide courtyard through the great gateway, under the lofty towers of the famous Castello which for over a hundred and fifty years had been the home of Viscontis and Sforzas.
Among them we recognize many familiar names, Crivellis, Bergaminis, Marlianis, and Viscontis, who had served Duke Lodovico loyally and now shared in his disgrace. Many of these took refuge at Ferrara and Mantua; others went to Rome or lived in retirement on Venetian territory, while as many as two hundred and fifty were living at one time at Innsbrück.
In the height of the animosities between the factions of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, a party of Venetians had made an inroad into the territories of the Viscontis, sovereigns of Milan, and had carried off the young Orondates, then at nurse. His family were at that time under a cloud, though they could boast of being descended from Canis Scaliger, lord of Verona.
Those Viscontis, Castruccios, and Medici; those Richelieus and Mazarins and De Retzs; those Loyolas and Mohammeds and Cromwells; those Monks and Godolphins; those Markboroughs and Walpoles; those founders of history and dynasties and sects; those leaders and dupers of men, greater or lesser, corrupters or corrupt, all standing out prominent and renowned from the guiltless and laurelless obscure, seemed to win, by the homage of posterity, the rewards that attend the deceivers of their time.
Portraits of the dukes and duchesses were introduced, together with lions and tigers, wild boars and stags flying before the hounds, in the forest shades or on the open moor. The ball-room was adorned with historic subjects from the lives of the earlier Viscontis.
Those Viscontis, Castruccios, and Medici; those Richelieus and Mazarins and De Retzs; those Loyolas and Mohammeds and Cromwells; those Monks and Godolphins; those Markboroughs and Walpoles; those founders of history and dynasties and sects; those leaders and dupers of men, greater or lesser, corrupters or corrupt, all standing out prominent and renowned from the guiltless and laurelless obscure, seemed to win, by the homage of posterity, the rewards that attend the deceivers of their time.
It was a comfort when, the affairs of the Viscontis being at last satisfactorily arranged, he was able on June 6th to start on his journey back to France. He travelled by the Mont Cenis, and was nearly blinded by clouds of fine dust, so that he was unable to write for some days.
He was in special difficulties, as he had lately borrowed ten or fifteen thousand francs from the impecunious Viscontis, giving them as guarantee some shares in the unfortunate Chemin de Fer du Nord, and as the railway was a failure, and these shares were a burden instead of a benefit, Balzac was bound in honour to relieve his friends of their troublesome possession, and to pay back what he owed them.
The vaulted halls were painted with the finest ultramarine and gold, and the arms of Sforzas and Viscontis, the lilies of France and the red cross of Savoy, appeared on the groined roof between planets and stars of raised gold.
And now it was all over, and the French were supreme in Milan, and the great horse on which the master had spent the best years of his life was used as a target for the arrows of Gascon archers. The duke and Messer Galeaz were captives, Sforzas and Viscontis were in prison or exile, and Jacopo Andrea had died a cruel death.
Word Of The Day