The court and all the nobility were
present, and though it was no longer thought becoming for ecclesiastics
to visit the theatre, the easy-going Bishop appeared in a side-box in
company with his chaplains and the Vicar-general.
The performance was brilliantly successful. Frantic applause greeted the
tirades of the young Icilius. Every outburst against the abuse of
privileges and the insolence of the patricians was acclaimed by
ministers and courtiers, and the loudest in approval were the Marquess
Pievepelago, the recognised representative of the clericals, the
Marchioness of Boscofolto, whose harsh enforcement of her feudal rights
was among the bitterest grievances of the peasantry, and the good
Bishop, who had lately roused himself from his habitual indolence to
oppose the threatened annexation of the Caccia del Vescovo. One and all
proclaimed their ardent sympathy with the proletariat, their scorn of
tyranny and extortion in high places; and if the Marchioness, on her
return home, ordered one of her linkmen to be flogged for having trod on
her gown; if Pievepelago the next morning refused to give audience to a
poor devil of a pamphleteer that was come to ask his intercession with
the Holy Office; if the Bishop at the same moment concluded the purchase
of six able-bodied Turks from the galleys of his Serenity the Doge of
Genoa--it is probable that, like the illustrious author of the drama,
all were unconscious of any incongruity between their sentiments and
actions.
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