Like a true soldier—one who has no personal ill-feeling for the accidental enemy of the moment and who, the question in hand once settled, is ready to do anything in his power for the man he has been fighting—Carlo, on meeting a former adversary in the person of the son of the Count of Padua, at Asti, and finding him in exceedingly straitened and uncomfortable circumstances, took him to his arms and lent him four hundred ducats. It is pleasant to know that his generosity was not imposed upon, for the money was paid back later, when the exile was restored to his possessions.
Later, too, Carlo again defeated the Genoese, led this time by a French general, and, after that, hung up his good sword and turned to civil affairs; though he once accompanied the troops against the Carrara, as a “provveditore,” and, on Padua being taken, was made Governor of that city.
Now, the real rulers of Venice were the dreaded and terrible Ten. From any decision of theirs there was no appeal, and, since these decisions were guided only by their own passions, it can be understood that the civil affairs of Venice were in a precarious condition. On the taking of Padua, Carlo’s old beneficiary, Francesco de Carrara and his son were taken to Venice and there, by order of the Ten, strangled in their prison. Carlo’s successor in the governorship of Padua, having nothing better to do, took upon himself to go through the old city accounts, and, among them, discovered the entry of the four hundred ducats which Francesco repaid to Carlo Zeno. The account made no mention of any loan, though, and the governor, anxious to get himself into the good graces of the Ten, immediately sent them the document.
It seems hardly credible that even that vitiated council could have refused to accept Carlo’s word for it, but, in spite of all his glorious services, they insisted upon believing this was a bribe that he had received and sentenced him to the loss of all his places and titles and to five years of imprisonment besides! And yet Venice was called a Republic!
By the lifting of his finger Carlo could have raised such a storm as would have swallowed up the civil government of Venice in a week, but he seems to have accepted the horrid injustice—as did Pisani before him—with philosophy. It is not likely that the sentence was executed, though—even the Ten were not powerful enough for that, one imagines—and Carlo was soon off on a journey to Jerusalem, where he was knighted—he, Carlo, the scourge of Genoa, the terror of the Turks!—by a Prince, it is said, of Scotland, though of that, in view of the character and occupations of such of the Scottish Princes of the times as our history tells of, one cannot but have the gravest doubts.
An old man now, Zeno had one last scuffle with the Genoese, in the service of the King of Cyprus, and after beating them soundly returned home, at the age of seventy-four or seventy-five, and settled down. He lived for several years afterwards, gathering around himself the best of the city—artists, literati, scholars of all sorts. And when he died he was carried to his grave on the shoulders of the seamen, as a sailor should be.
FOOTNOTES:
[1]. “Pagus” signified “village.” The term “pagan” was first applied to the dwellers in rural districts, who, from the remoteness of their surroundings, were tardier in hearing of and embracing Christianity than the inhabitants of the cities.
[2]. “A Diplomatist’s Wife in Many Lands.”
[3]. Constantinople and Jerusalem were added in after times to the list, but only attained this honour by the consent of the reigning Pontiff.