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Show EHE1WYJN SIGHT Correspondent Visits the Ancient City While Great Battle Is Raging on the Piave. By BARON MAURICE DE WALEFFE, Noted French Author. Correspondence of the International News Service. VUXICr:, Nov. 2." ( By Mail;. While the sreat battle on the Piave for the possession of Venice was raging- fifteen miles away, I ohtaincl permission to r visit the incomparable city. I found on that peaceful Sunday un anxious popu- 1 lace, but amoncr tbeni reigned the great-est great-est order. The thunder of the heavy , guji-s on the inonitors at the mouth of j the f'iave was the only sound tiiat broke the stillness of the Sabbath morning. . j At nightfall I mounted to the roof of j the doges' palace. Toward the north-. ! w-fst was the most awe-inspiring sight. The sky seemed to be torn apart with ! tbe flashes that marked the line of fire, while Iho old building swayed with the rapid detonations of the big guns. The . tongues of flame would light up the ! background of somber mountains that had so long held the enemy at bay and i whose snow-capped crests gleamed and receded In the cannons' flare. Throngs in Prayer. From below rose a confused murmur of voices from St. Mark's cathedral, i where the poor and the aged had come to place themselves under the protection of the.fr patron saint as In the days of old. Vespers were being said while special spe-cial prayers for the sarety of their ancient an-cient city were offered up by the kneel-in? kneel-in? throng. 1 descended and entered the famous cathedral, where the chant of the priests and the mingled intonations of the worshippers echoed from the golden gold-en mosaics of trio cupolas. Mgr. 1 Fontaine, the successor of J Mus X to the patriarchal throne of Venice, would receive in his palace near the basilica. T mounted a n Immense stairway of marble yelioweel with age, ; in the dim shadows cast by a single : lantern of rose-colored glass. Dwells nign in lower. His eminence dwells high in this marble mar-ble tower and was seated in an immense room, shadowy, austere and almost bare of furniture. There was no fire, so the cardinal had thrown a kind of black ' frock coal over bis red cassock. Under the tight-fitting purple cap that crowned F IlIs white hairs I sa w a face in which pride, deep care and anxiety strove for ma Htery. For ten days the suffering population of Venice bad come to him, and he was worn out. f recalled to him the role of the cardinals- of the fourteenth century, when i lie bishops protected their city and population pop-ulation against the cruelties of the invading in-vading barharia t;s. "Xo matter what happens." he said, slowly, "every bishop of my diocese will remain at his post the same as those at Bclluuo and Felt re have done. They may be swept aside and overwhelmed by the flood of tbe invasion, but they will remain true to the last:" In the palace of tbe doges I found the secretary roC fine arts, to wjiom I put the prosaic question of what would happen hap-pen to t be treasures of Venice In the event of a bombardment of the city, and wht'thcr he would counsel its complete eva ua t;t)ii. Prefer Ruin to Yielding. With (pars in his eyes he assured me he would ra ther see tbe wonders of the world smashed to bits than yield Venice-to Venice-to the enemy when it. is possible to maintain if as a naval base and a men-ace men-ace to the left flank of the Austro-;"mans. Austro-;"mans. 1 found his opinion shared by others of the inhabitants. 'Ptie rrowd was pouring out of the en i hedral. The Venetian girls in their lotig-tringed shavlswere passing to and I'm and conversing" animatedly. Some facer, worf even gay. The population of th city has shrunk from its ordinary figure of j' I'oui. 2"0,0('0 to less than a fifth uf that number. Those who re-nif re-nif in are for the greater part working P'-nnlc They yrc using their enforced fnipns-onnu'iit fnipns-onnu'iit an an outburst of almost hyg-irriciil hyg-irriciil gaiety in Iho face of the advancing advanc-ing enemy. But even (bat could not conceal their anxiot v. All business b.is stopped. The c.'uinl:-- are desert 'Hi except for a few decrepit de-crepit gondolas I ha I creep along slowly. . Tiie spirit of dread and impending dls-as'ier dls-as'ier hangs over tbe whole city. |