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navigationCatalogue sur fiches  The Twenty Years Siege of Candia
By Edward Taylor Fletcher   [Originally published by the
Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions,
Original Series, Vol. 4, No. 2 (1855)]    [Read before the
Society, 19th January, 1853.]   IN the middle of the seventeenth
century, the glory of I the Most Serene Republic of Venice was
already on the wane. Cyprus was lost. The islands of the
archipelago were under Moslem sway. The Turks were established
in the Morea. Of the three subject kingdoms, whose flags were
wont of old to wave in the great square of St. Mark, - Candia
alone remained uninvaded. The commerce of I Europe was forsaking
its former channels. The state offices of the Republic were fast
becoming venal. And weakened I by the terrible struggle that
followed the league of Cam-I brai, the government, since the
period of that formidable I coalition, had appeared