remarkable union of gloom and gayety, of romance and reality, of the
beautiful and the tragic, directly suggested by inevitable local
associations, cannot be found in the whole range of European travel.
Imagine this memorable square, on the afternoon of a great Christmas
festival;--fair faces at every window,--the adjacent roofs crowded with
spectators,--an Austrian regiment drawn up around a scaffold,--the
Viceroy, brother of the Emperor, standing in the large balcony of the
Palace,--two cannon placed between the columns of San Marco and San
Teodoro,--every inch of the vast Piazza, without the circle of
soldiery, occupied by eager spectators. Over this vast assemblage, amid
the impending thoughts which the incidents of the hour and the memory
of the Past inspired, reigned a profound silence; no laugh or jest,
such as bespeaks a holiday, no heartless curiosity, such as accompanies
a mere public show, no vulgar excitement was evident; on many faces
dwelt an expression of awe and pity,--on others an indignant frown,--on
all painful and sympathetic expectancy. Every class was represented,
from the swarthy fishermen of the lagoons to the dark-eyed countess of
the Palazzo,--pale students, venerable citizens, the shopkeeper and the
marquis, the priest and the advocate. It was not merely the fate of the
few prisoners on the scaffold, deep as was the public sympathy, which
occasioned this profound suspense; they represented the national cause,
and in every city of the land there were scores of the bravest and the
best equally involved in the patriotic sacrifice, and whose destiny
had, for long and weary months, agonized their relations, friends, and
countrymen. The anomalous tyranny under which the nation had collapsed
was demonstrated not so much by the outward aspect as by the moral
facts of that fatal day in the Piazza of San Marco. On the scaffold
were a group of educated, courageous, honest Italians, guarded by
Austrian soldiers and overlooked by the official representative of
imperial despotism; their attitude was criminal, their acts sublime;