The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 4

Note 471 — Scene III.—The Court of the Ducal Palace; the outer gates are shut against the people.—The Doge enters in his ducal robes, in procession with the Council of Ten and other Patricians, attended by the Guards, till they arrive at the top of the "Giants' Staircase"[469] (where the Doges took the oaths); the Executioner is stationed there with his sword.—On arriving, a Chief of the Ten takes off the ducal cap from the Doge's head.

Reading edition

{456} [In his reply to the envoys of the Venetian Senate (April, 1797), Buonaparte threatened to "prove an Attila to Venice. If you cannot," he added, "disarm your population, I will do it in your stead—your government is antiquated—it must crumble to pieces."—Scott's Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, 1828, p. 230. Compare, too, Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza xc. lines 1, 2—

"The fool of false dominion—and a kind Of bastard Cæsar," etc.]

Return to Scene III.—The Court of the Ducal Palace; the outer gates are shut against the people.—The Doge enters in his ducal robes, in procession with the Council of Ten and other Patricians, attended by the Guards, till they arrive at the top of the "Giants' Staircase"[469] (where the Doges took the oaths); the Executioner is stationed there with his sword.—On arriving, a Chief of the Ten takes off the ducal cap from the Doge's head.