We intended to go to the Bridge of Sighs, but happened into the Ducal Palace first -- a building which necessarily figures largely in Venetian poetry and tradition. In the Senate Chamber of the ancient Republic we wearied our eyes with staring at acres of historical paintings by Tintoretto and Paul Veronese, but nothing struck us forcibly except the one thing that strikes all strangers forcibly -- a black square in the midst of a gallery of portraits. In one long row, around the great hall, were painted the portraits of the Doges of Venice (venerable fellows, with flowing white beards, for of the three hundred Senators eligible to the office, the oldest was usually chosen Doge,) and each had its complimentary inscription attached -- till you came to the place that should have had Marino Faliero's picture in it, and that was blank and black -- blank, except that it bore a terse inscription, saying that the conspirator had died for his crime [Cf. <http://www.bartleby.com/65/fa/Faliero.html>]. It seemed cruel to keep that pitiless inscription still staring from the walls after the unhappy wretch had been in his grave five hundred years.
At the head of the Giant's Staircase, where Marino Faliero was beheaded [Cf. <http://www.the-wallace-collection.org.uk/c/w_a/p_w_d/f/p/p282.htm>], and where the Doges were crowned in ancient times, two small slits in the stone wall were pointed out -- two harmless, insignificant orifices that would never attract a stranger's attention -- yet these were the terrible Lions' Mouths! The heads were gone (knocked off by the French during their occupation of Venice,) but these were the throats, down which went the anonymous accusation, thrust in secretly at dead of night by an enemy, that doomed many an innocent man to walk the Bridge of Sighs and descend into the dungeon which none entered and hoped to see the sun again. This was in the old days when the Patricians alone governed Venice -- the common herd had no vote and no voice. There were one thousand five hundred Patricians; from these, three hundred Senators were chosen; from the Senators a Doge and a Council of Ten [Cf. <http://www.bartleby.com/65/te/Ten-Coun.html>] were selected, and by secret ballot the Ten chose from their own number a Council of Three. All these were Government spies, then, and every spy was under surveillance himself -- men spoke in whispers in Venice, and no man trusted his neighbor -- not always his own brother. No man knew who the Council of Three were -- not even the Senate, not even the Doge; the members of that dread tribunal met at night in a chamber to themselves, masked, and robed from head to foot in scarlet cloaks, and did not even know each other, unless by voice. It was their duty to judge heinous political crimes, and from their sentence there was no appeal. A nod to the executioner was sufficient. The doomed man was marched down a hall and out at a door-way into the covered Bridge of Sighs, through it and into the dungeon and unto his death. At no time in his transit was he visible to any save his conductor. If a man had an enemy in those old days, the cleverest thing he could do was to slip a note for the Council of Three into the Lion's mouth, saying "This man is plotting against the Government." If the awful Three found no proof, ten to one they would drown him anyhow, because he was a deep rascal, since his plots were unsolvable. Masked judges and masked executioners, with unlimited power, and no appeal from their judgements, in that hard, cruel age, were not likely to be lenient with men they suspected yet could not convict.
(Mark Twain, _Innocents Abroad; or, The New Pilgrim's Progress_ (1869), Chapter 22, <http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/TwaInno.html>) ***** -- Yoshie
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