Within the circuit of the Court the whole life of the Duchy seemed to concentrate itself.

From the frontier of Venice to the Apennines a tract of fertile country, yielding all necessaries of life, corn, wine, cattle, game, fish, in abundance, poured its produce into the palaces and castles of the Duke.

He, like other Princes of his epoch, sucked each province dry in order to maintain a dazzling show of artificial wealth.

The people were ground down by taxes, monopolies of corn and salt, and sanguinary game-laws.

Brutalized by being forced to serve the pleasures of their masters, they lived the lives of swine.