Catherine in trouble.—"LibertÀ e ChiesÀ!" in ForlÌ.—The Cardinal Savelli.—The Countess and her Castellano perform a comedy before the lieges.—A veteran revolutionist.—No help coming from Rome.—Cardinal Legate in an awkward position.—All over with the Orsi.—Their last night in ForlÌ.—Catherine herself again.—Retribution.—An octogenarian conspirator's last day.

The corpse of the murdered man lay tranquilly on the pavement of that vast "Hall of the Nymphs," surrounded by the hangings of arras, and sideboards of plate "ten feet high," the produce of many a deed of rapine, oppression, and wrong; tranquilly and free, for some five minutes past now, from troublous thoughts of meat-taxes, empty coffers, Ordelaffi conspiracies, and revolutions, for the first time these four years! It lay near the great window, and the thick blood flowed slowly over the painted brick floor, making a dark stain, which ForlÌ tradition could still point out to curious strangers towards the end of the last century. The affrighted servant, who it seems was one Ludovico Ercolani, a butler, long in the service of the Riarii, had run from the hall, to carry the terrible tidings to the distant chamber of the Countess. And for a few short minutes the murderers, Checco d'Orsi and his accomplices, Giacomo Ronchi and Ludovico Pansecco, stood alone over their victim, with pallid faces and starting eyeballs, taking rapid counsel as to what was next to be done.[119]

This ruffian Pansecco, one of the historians quietly remarks, had been employed by the Count on occasion of the Pazzi murders.

Those moments were anxious ones to the doers of the desperate deed, for all depended on the feeling, with which the populace might at the first blush regard it. Their anxiety was not of long duration, however. From the open window the three assassins cried to the people in the Piazza "Liberty! Liberty! The tyrant is dead! ForlÌ is its own mistress!" It was the evening hour at which every Italian, then as now, is out of doors enjoying the fresh air, and chatting with neighbours, sitting in groups in front of the druggists' shops—(a curiously universal and time-honoured habit in the provincial cities of Italy), or walking to and fro in the principal square; and the news, therefore, ran through the city with the quickness of lightning. In an instant the Piazza was crowded with citizens, crying, "An Orso! an Orso! Liberty! Liberty!" and the conspirators were safe—for the present.

The palace guard lost no time in providing for their own safety, by separating and mingling with the people. Ludovico d'Orsi, Checco's brother, a doctor of law and whilome senator at Rome, who had been guarding the stair leading to Catherine's apartments, went out into the Piazza to excite and direct the mob. But the Chancellor, who had been with the Count at the time of the murder, had meanwhile reached Catherine's room by another passage. Her younger children and their nurses, and a young sister of hers, named Stella, whom she was about to marry advantageously to a certain Andrea Ricci, were with her. And the confusion in that room, full of women and children, on the abrupt and breathless telling of such news may be easily imagined. But Catherine, with infinite promptitude of thought, ordered Ludovico to hasten, without losing a moment by lingering with them, to the castle; and to tell Feo, the governor, from her, to send off instant couriers to her brother, the Duke, at Milan, and to her husband's friend and ally, Bentivoglio, Lord of Bologna.

Catherine, and the women with her, barred the door behind him as best they might with heavy furniture and so forth. But he had hardly had time to get clear of the palace before Checco with half-a-dozen ruffians were thundering at the Countess's room, and in a very few minutes had forced an entrance. The chroniclers have noted that Orsi could not bring himself at that moment to face Catherine. He remained at the door, while the men he had brought with him made the women understand that they must come with them.

And thus the family of the murdered sovereign were marched through the crowded streets of the city to the Orsi palace, and there locked up as prisoners.

That done, the conspirators hastily called together the leading men in the city, to decide on the steps to be taken for the government of it henceforth. For the Orsi, wealthy, numerous, influential, and violent as they were, had no hope of being permitted to make themselves lords of ForlÌ. They proposed, therefore, the step which promised the next best chances for their own greatness and power,—to lay ForlÌ at the feet of the Pontiff. This was frequently a measure adopted in those days in similar circumstances. The crime committed would be thus wiped out; the family of the murdered prince, and the neighbouring princes, who might be disposed to profit by the occasion, would be kept at bay; and, since the Church could only hold and govern and tax distant dependencies by means of governors and lieutenants, who so likely to step into such profitable places, as the powerful citizen who had gained the new state for the Holy Father?

The frightened council at once assented to the proposal, and sent off that same night messengers to the Cardinal Savelli, who was residing as governor for the Church at Cesena, a city about twelve miles to the south of ForlÌ.

Meanwhile some of the partisans of the Orsi had thrown the body of Girolamo from the window into the Piazza; and while the citizens were busied in displaying everywhere the papal flag, amid cries of "ChiesÀ! ChiesÀ!" the mob having torn every rag of clothing from the corpse, dragged it through the streets of the city, till certain friars took it from them, and placed it in the sacristy of their church.

The Cardinal Savelli did not at all like the proposal made to him; and lost some important time, before, "being unwilling to have it said that the Church had lost a chance through his cowardice," he at last made up his mind to accept it. On arriving at ForlÌ, his first step was to visit Catherine in the Orsi Palace. An historical novelist would have little difficulty, and better historical warranty than often suffices for such purposes, in presenting his readers with a sufficiently striking and picturesque account of that interview. Catherine, the historians tell us, was, as we might expect from our knowledge of her, haughty, unbroken, and unbending; the Cardinal, as we might also expect from our knowledge of his kind, smooth-tongued, courteous, full of regrets and talk about his sacred duty to Holy Mother Church. This is all history tells us. But it is enough. The imagination has no difficulty in filling up the sketch.

But at the conclusion of his courteous talking, the Cardinal intimated, that it would be better, that the Countess and her family should for the present find a safe shelter in a small but strong building over the St. Peter's gateway, under the care of trusty citizens, to be named by his Eminence. And Catherine was far from unwilling to acquiesce in the change. For though the accommodation proposed to her was materially of the most wretched, yet she naturally preferred any prison to the home of her husband's murderer; and the Cardinal's hint, that the gateway prison might be a safer asylum for her and her children than the palace of the Orsi, was, she felt, more than a mere pretext.

That night, accordingly, the 15th of April, Catherine and her family were marched through the city, escorted by a troop of guards, bearing torches, from the Orsi palace to her new prison. The little procession of prisoners consisted of twelve persons; the Countess herself, her mother (who is now mentioned for the first time since her daughter's birth, and who may in all probability be supposed to have become Catherine's inmate at the time of her settling permanently in ForlÌ after the death of Sixtus), her sister Stella, her six children, a natural son of the Count, named Scipio, and two nurses. They were received with all courtesy by the three citizens to whose keeping the Cardinal had consigned them; but suffered much from the insufficiency of the small room to hold them.

The next day Cardinal Savelli and the conspirators summoned Feo, the Governor of Ravaldino, to deliver up the fortress; and on his refusal, they brought Catherine from her prison to the foot of the walls, and there compelled her to give her own orders viva voce to the Castellano to do so. On his showing himself on the ramparts, she not only commanded, but implored him with every possible appearance of earnestness, to save her life by delivering up the fort. In all probability the Countess and her Castellano perfectly understood each other. In any case he knew Catherine's character, and had, moreover, the orders which had reached him by Ercolani for his guidance. At all events, he replied to her commands and entreaties by a steady refusal; and the baffled conspirators had to take her back to the gate-house.

"Ah, Madame Catherine," said Giacomo Ronchi, one of three who had murdered the Count, and who stood by her side as she parleyed with Feo, "if you were really in earnest, he would yield. But it is you, who do not wish him to obey your words; and it makes me long to lay you dead where you stand with a thrust of this partizan through the body!"

This, writes Cobelli, the ballet-master historian, I heard, who was there, listening and seeing everything in order to record it faithfully.

That night the faithful Ercolani contrived to gain admittance to his mistress in her prison; and it was then concerted, that if, as she anticipated, she were again taken to the fort on the morrow, to repeat the scheme which had that day failed, she should attempt to obtain permission to enter the fortress. To this end, Ercolani was to communicate with Feo with the utmost secrecy, and give him the necessary instructions for playing into Catherine's hands. He was to seek an interview with the Cardinal also, and endeavour to persuade him by feigning anxiety on account of the danger to Catherine from the governor's obstinacy, that the surest means of inducing him to yield would be to allow her to speak to him within the castle. He knew both parties well enough, he assured his Eminence, to feel certain, that Feo would not be able to resist his mistress, when brought face to face with her.

The Cardinal had lately had that honour, and was inclined to think the statement probable enough.

The following day, Catherine, as she had expected, was again taken to the foot of the ramparts of the fortress by the conspirators, accompanied this time by Savelli; and the Castellano was again called to parley.

The comedy of yesterday having been again performed between them, the Cardinal demanded of the governor, whether he would obey his lady, if she were to enter the fortress, and there give him the same orders, so that he could have no pretext for supposing that she was acting under constraint. To this Feo replied, that he could not say what he might do under such circumstances, but should endeavour to act up to what should then seem to be his duty. On her part, Catherine declared, that she was sure she could induce him to yield, if only she could be permitted to speak to him privately.

The Orsi and their friends were strongly against letting her out of their hands, although she reminded them that she left her children as hostages in their power. Cardinal Savelli, however, was for allowing her to go in, and his counsel prevailed.

Catherine was permitted to enter the fortress alone, on the agreed understanding, that, successful or not in prevailing upon the governor, she was to come forth again in three hours.

Very exciting was the interest which kept all parties in the city on the tip-toe of expectation during these important three hours. Both among the well-wishers of the Countess, and among her enemies, opposite opinions prevailed as to the probabilities of the issue. Money to a great extent would have changed hands on the event, had the scene been enacted among our bet-loving countrymen. The ForlÌvesi passed the time in ceaseless debate as to the course which the lady might, could, would, or should adopt. The space before the ramparts of the castle remained crowded with anxious groups of talking citizens during the whole of the appointed interval. And the Orsi, and their more immediate allies, consoled their shrewd misgivings, that their victim had escaped them, by dark threats as to the fate of her children.

At length, the great bell on the Piazza told all ForlÌ that the three hours were over. All rushed towards the castle to witness the variously expected event. The sitting groups sprang to their feet; and a sudden silence succeeded to the roar of a whole city's chatter, when, in obedience to a summons from a trumpet, Feo appeared on the battlements. And it is easy to imagine the burst of varied passions, which again broke forth into a storm of voices, when that officer, with most untroubled coolness, told them, that:—

"His liege lady was much fatigued by what she had gone through; that immediately on her entry into the fort, he had counselled her to seek repose; and that she was now, in fact, enjoying a sound sleep, from which he could not think of disturbing her. That, as to her quitting the fortress of Ravaldino in the present state of her city of ForlÌ, he, governor of that fortress, judged it safer for her not to do so; and, therefore, be her own intentions what they might, when she should awake from her slumbers, he should in no wise permit her to go forth."

And so saying, the Castellano, calm, in the secure consciousness of the perfect strength of his walls, retreated into their shelter.

His Eminence the Cardinal Savelli was angry enough at the dupery which had been practised on him. But the Orsi, to whom the matter in hand was a question of life, station, and property, were transported with fury. Some of them hastened off to the gate-house prison, and soon returned with Catherine's children. The imperturbable Castellano was again summoned to his ramparts, and ordered to inform the Countess[120] that the lives of her children depended on the instant performance of her compact.

Again he replied, that he would do nothing of the kind. As to the children, who were there below in the hands of their father's assassins, in mortal terror enough, poor things, and naturally urging the governor with very earnest and sincere entreaties to give up the fort and save their lives, he would merely advise the citizens of ForlÌ to reflect a little before they suffered a hair of their heads to be hurt. He reminded them, that these children were the nephews of the powerful and neighbouring Duke of Milan, that the Lord of Bologna, still nearer at hand, was their ally and connection; and told them to ask of themselves whether, in the case of their cold-blooded murder, it was not likely that the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah might be tolerable compared with that, which would fall on ForlÌ.

The Cardinal Savelli, angry and provoked as he was, had certainly no intention of really staining his hands with these children's blood. The body of the citizens felt the truth of what Feo had said; and eventually the boys and their sister were carried back to their prison unhurt, though the Orsi and their accomplices were, says Burriel, gnashing their teeth with baffled fury.

On the evening of that day, the 16th, while the Orsi and their friends were at supper, and engaged in anxious discussion as to the next steps to be taken, their father, who had retired from the city to his country house a little before the murder of the Count, returned to the Orsi palace. He was eighty-five years old, and in revolutionary matters certainly might well be deemed a high authority, for this was the seventh insurrection in which he had been engaged in ForlÌ. In all the troubles, which had preceded the expulsion of the Ordelaffi, as well as in all those which had succeeded the usurpation of the Riarii, this turbulent old noble had always taken a leading part. Now, drawing various examples from the treasures of his long experience, the old man severely blamed his sons for leaving their work half done. Either they ought to have never ventured on such a step as putting the Count to death, or they ought to have extinguished his entire family. As it was, he augured ill of the future, and feared that the having let Catherine escape into a fortress perfectly impregnable by any means at their command, would prove an irremediable and fatal error.

It was determined among them to send off messengers to Rome that night, to lay the obedience of the city at the feet of the Pontiff, and urge him to send immediate assistance in troops and munitions.

The 17th was occupied in hostilities, which caused much mischief and suffering in the city, without the least advancing any solution of the position. The Cardinal Legate brought up from Cesena all the troops he could collect under the pontifical banner; but they had no efficient means of attacking Ravaldino. On the other hand, Feo bombarded the town, and left marks still pointed out centuries afterwards; and caused many catastrophes, the subject of ForlÌ traditional talk for many a year. But still nothing decisive was accomplished.

On the 18th, a herald from Bentivoglio, Prince of Bologna, arrived in ForlÌ, and was received by Savelli and the heads of the revolutionary party in the town hall. He came, he said, in the first place, to warn the citizens on the part of his master, on pain of certain and entire destruction of their city, to do no harm to the children of the murdered Count; and secondly, to demand that Catherine should be placed in liberty, and Octavian, the eldest son of Girolamo, proclaimed Count of ForlÌ.

To these demands Savelli replied, that for the children there was nothing to be feared: they were in perfect safety. As to the Countess, she was in perfect liberty as far as the city authorities were concerned; and all that was asked of her was to give up the citadel and depart in peace. But as for proclaiming the late Count's heir, sovereign of ForlÌ, that was wholly out of the question, even if the city wished to do so; inasmuch as they had already declared themselves the Pope's subjects, and had sent an embassy to Rome to lay their city and their fealty at the feet of his Holiness. With which answer the herald retired.

But the mere appearance of this messenger from the Lord of Bologna had produced an effect upon several of the citizens, which must have warned the conspirators how little they could depend upon the steadiness or support of the people. Many began to murmur against those who, they already surmised, might be ultimately on the losing side; and Savelli and the Orsi had to send many suspected of adhering to the Riarii out of the city.

Catherine's sister Stella was taken from the Gatehouse prison to the bedside of her betrothed husband Ricci, who was laid up by wounds he had received in the fighting that had occurred in the palace immediately after the murder; and having been there married to him, was permitted to depart to Cesena in company with her mother Lucretia.

During this day, too, the Orsi, becoming more and more painfully anxious about the issue of their enterprise, sent a letter to Lorenzo de' Medici, asking his support against the family of his old enemy. But on the 19th, the messenger came back, bringing only a verbal answer from Lorenzo, to the effect that he had no surviving resentment on account of by-gone matters to gratify—that he had no inclination to meddle in such an affair as that proposed to him; and that he hoped and purposed to pass the remainder of his days in quiet.

On the 20th, arrived two letters from the Duke of Milan, one to Savelli, and one to the ComunitÀ of ForlÌ. In the first the Duke expressed his astonishment that the Cardinal should have ventured to take possession of ForlÌ, not merely without any commission from his Holiness, but, as there was every reason to believe, before any knowledge of the recent events had reached the Papal court. He admonished his Eminence, that he was acting in open disregard of all law and every principle of justice; and concluded by very pointedly advising him, as he would avoid further misfortunes, to return forthwith to his own affairs at Cesena. The letter to the ComunitÀ in much the same terms advised the citizens, as the only means of confining the consequences of the late excesses to the immediate authors of them, to send away the Cardinal, and return at once to their allegiance.

Savelli began to find himself in a difficult and disagreeable position, and resolved on taking a strong, and what would appear to our ideas a dangerous step. Since nothing came from Rome, neither troops, nor authority of any kind for what he had done in the Pope's name, his Eminence determined to forge the letter so urgently needed. He accordingly produced a bull, which he declared had just reached him from Rome, by which his Holiness thanked the ForlÌvesi for their affection towards the Church, accepted the allegiance of the city, and promised to send troops with speed to support them in the course they had taken. The fraud was, however, but partially successful for the moment; for many, we are told, doubted of the authenticity of this bull from the first.

The next day things looked still worse for the conspirators and their ecclesiastical patron. Two heralds from Bentivoglio, and the Duke of Milan, rode into the great square of ForlÌ, and publicly before the people demanded, in the name of the Duke of Milan, that the children of the late Count should be immediately brought to him; announcing further, that a strong force was then on its march, and already within a short distance of the city. Checco d'Orsi, who received them, replied with the utmost insolence and audacity, that the children had already been put to death, and that ForlÌ feared neither Bentivoglio nor the Duke of Milan, as the Pope's troops would be there to help them before the Milanese could reach the city. How much of this was mere bravado, and how much inspired by real hope of succour from Rome, it is difficult to say. But it became clear afterwards, that Innocent VIII., who was a very different man from the aggressive Franciscan his predecessor, had turned a completely deaf ear to the proposals of the ForlÌvesi, and the communications of his own legate; being determined, as it should seem, in no wise to interfere in the matter. Indeed, when the over-zealous legate Savelli was afterwards within an inch of being hung by Catherine for his share in the revolution, Innocent abstained from all interference even by remonstrance in his favour.

Thus matters went on till the 29th, the Milanese and Bolognese troops gradually drawing near to the city, and Savelli and the Orsi becoming daily more discouraged and alarmed at the non-appearance of the expected assistance from the Pope. Once the sentine on the top of the tower of the Palazzo Pubblico declared, that he saw troops coming towards the city from the southward; and the news in an instant put the declining cause of the conspirators once again in the ascendant with the fickle populace. The whole city was ringing with cries of "Orso! Orso! ChiesÀ! ChiesÀ!" when it was discovered that the supposed Papal army was a body of fifty horsemen coming to the assistance of the Countess; and the affections of the ForlÌ lieges again began to lean towards their old masters accordingly.

Meantime Savelli battered the citadel with cannon brought from Cesena and Forlimpopoli, and Feo battered the city from his rampart, but without much mischief being done on either side.

On the 29th, the army of the Duke of Milan and the Bolognese were before the walls of ForlÌ. A duly accredited envoy from the Duke entered the town, and had a long secret interview with Savelli. Communications passed also between Catherine in the fortress and her friends outside the city. The fort of Ravaldino seems during the whole time of the rebellion to have had free means of communication, for ingress and egress, with the open country beyond the walls of the city; so that Catherine might at any time have escaped had she not preferred to hold the citadel. The preservation of her dominions, and very possibly her life, were entirely due to the possession of this stronghold. And the incidents of this rebellion in ForlÌ, which may be taken as a very perfect type of hundreds of similar events of constant recurrence in the history of the petty principalities and municipalities of Italy in those centuries, throw a very sufficient light on the paramount importance attached by the rulers of those cities to the possession of such a place of refuge, and the proportionably vast sums they expended in erecting and maintaining them. The great difficulty in the matter always was to find some Castellano sufficiently trustworthy for it to be safe to confide the fortress to his keeping. The great power arising from the absolute command of a building so strong as to be impregnable to any means of attack that citizens could bring against it, and from which the inmates might do much damage to the city with very little danger of suffering any injury themselves, was so great and so tempting, that the governors of these fortresses were rarely to be depended on. It might be almost said, that in cases of difficulty and temptation treachery was the rule, and fidelity to the lord the exception. And it not unfrequently occurred, that the Castellano within his walls felt himself to be more than a match for his master and sovereign outside them: a state of things of which some of the episodes in the history of ForlÌ narrated in these pages have shown us a few symptoms.

By the evening of the 29th, it was sufficiently evident that it was all up with the hopes of the insurgents in ForlÌ. The game was clearly played out and lost. To make their situation still more desperate, a great number of written papers signed by Catherine were found scattered about the great square and streets of the town soon after dusk that evening. These contained strong exhortations from the Countess to her faithful subjects of ForlÌ, to put summarily to death all the leaders of the conspiracy before they could escape from the city; and promises of favour and rewards to any man whose dagger should be the means of making an end of any one of them.

The Orsi and their associates felt that the city was rapidly becoming too hot to hold them. That night, in hurried council, they determined on leaving ForlÌ secretly, before morning.

But there was one thing,—and the incident is strikingly illustrative of the character of the country and the epoch, and of the undying ferocity of Italian party hatred,—one thing to be done, even before providing for their personal safety, fearfully endangered as it was by every hour of delay. They determined that Catherine, on coming forth triumphant from her fortress, should find herself childless; and feel, in the moment of consummating her success, that it was worthless to her.

The six children were still at the gate-house in the care of the three citizens to whom Savelli had entrusted them. In the early part of the night, therefore, Checco d'Orso, Ronchi, and Pansecchi presented themselves at the prison, with a fictitious order from Savelli that the children should be given up to them to be conducted to a place of safety out of the city. Fortunately for the little ones, Capoferri conceived suspicions of the truth of the representations made to him, and steadily refused to give up the children, despite the urgent persuasions and threats of Orsi. The cautious triumvirate of the gate-house had declined to admit within their walls more than him alone of the party at the door. Checco, therefore, on finding himself thus baffled, made a sign from a window to his comrades outside to force an entrance at the moment of his passing out. Ronchi, seizing an axe, approached the door for this purpose. But a sentinel on the wall above, observing this hostile movement, fired down upon him and a servant, who was with him, and killed the latter. Ronchi retired from the wall, and at the same moment Orsi came out, and the gate was safely shut behind him.

There remained nothing for the baulked desperadoes but to hurry, with rage and despair in their hearts, to join the small body of relatives and adherents, who had prepared to quit the city with them. They went out, a party of seventeen, at two o'clock in the morning of the 30th of April: and thus the revolution was at an end.

According to all medieval law, right, and custom, ForlÌ deserved to be sacked in punishment for its rebellion; and it was not altogether easy for Catherine to save it from the horrors of such a fate. For it might be difficult to get rid of the troops who had come to her aid, if they were baulked of their anticipated prey. The Countess announced to the citizens that if she spared them this merited chastisement, she did so solely for the sake of the women of ForlÌ; for the men had not deserved mercy from her: and eventually, by prudence and caution, and permitting only a very few of the soldiers to enter the walls, ForlÌ was saved from sack.

One of the historians somewhat maliciously observes, that though he has no doubt of Madama Caterina's merciful consideration for the women of ForlÌ, still it was a fact, that all the vast quantity of plunder taken from the palace after the murder of the Count, was scattered through the city, and was subsequently nearly all recovered by the Countess; whereas, if ForlÌ had been sacked, no fragment of all this wealth would ever have been seen again.

And now, once again, we have pomps and processions, and complimentary speeches, and smiles, and oaths of fealty, and gracious condescension. The magistrates go in procession to Catherine in the fortress, with the key of the city, and excuses, and compliments, and loud detestation of the recent crime. And Catherine, on horseback between the generals of the forces sent to support her, makes a triumphant entry into the city; and there is an affecting meeting, with embracings and tears, between the Countess and her children; and Ottaviano is proclaimed Count, and "Madama," his mother, named regent; poor Girolamo is buried with much pomp in Imola; every tongue has something now to tell in favour of the lady regent:—did she not, when, surrounded by the Milanese and Bolognese officers, she was taking formal re-possession in great state of a fort outside the city, and when a man-at-arms rushed up to her in the middle of the ceremony, to say with panting breath, "Madonna! all the cellars of the Orsi are being plundered by the people! but I have secured some of the largest butts of wine for your ladyship, and have set a guard over them!"—did she not then and there, in the midst of the stranger generals, graciously reply, that she preferred that the poor people should share the wine among them, for that neither she nor her children wished to possess anything that had belonged to the Orsi! ... and, in a word, all is sunshine once again, ... except in one small cell of the Palazzo Pubblico, where a few of those who have made themselves noted by their violence during the insurrection, and have failed to escape in time from the city, are reserved for vengeance.

It is but just to Catherine's fair fame to note, that they were very few; and further to remember, if their punishment excites our loathing, that mercy was hardly recognised as a virtue, or known as a sentiment in those "ages of faith." There were among them the man who had thrown the Count's body from the window, and he who had been chiefly prominent in dragging it through the city. There was also the veteran revolutionist, Orsi, with his eighty-five years, long-flowing silver locks, and noble patrician bearing. The unfortunate old man had been left behind, when his sons and the others of the family had left the city, probably because his great age made it impossible for him to join in their hurried flight.

On the 1st of May three of these prisoners were hung at the windows of the Palazzo Pubblico, and then thrown thence into the square, where they were literally torn to pieces, and the shocking fragments left exposed till sunset, when they were collected and buried. The brutalising effects of such spectacles on the entire mass of the population is sufficiently indicated by the fact, that contemporary public opinion considered the Countess to have used much and unusual moderation in her dealings with such of the conspirators as fell into her hands.

On the evening of that day an ominous decree was posted in all quarters of the city, requiring that one able-bodied man from every family in ForlÌ should attend on the morrow with pickaxe and crowbar in front of the vast and magnificent palace of the Orsi. At daybreak on the 2nd of May a great crowd, armed as had been ordered, were assembled. At the same hour the venerable-looking head of the great Orsi clan was seen coming forth from his prison on the piazza, bare-headed, with his long silver locks glancing in the sunshine of that bright May morning, with hands bound behind his back, and led by the hangman, holding the end of a halter passed round the old man's neck. Thus led into the midst of the crowd of his fellow-citizens, he was placed in front of his ancestral home. And then the work of demolition was commenced.

"Have you well marked the spectacle, O Orso!" said the hangman to his prisoner, when the work was done; and then led him by the halter back to the piazza.

A cruel death awaited him there; but that which he had already endured, was probably the bitterest part of his punishment to the old patrician. That razing of the family mansion was infinitely more to a medieval Italian noble, than the mere destruction of so much property; and carried with it a bitterness of misery hardly appreciable to our less clannish feelings, and less localised attachments. The old Italian noble would have seen an equal amount of property destroyed at his villa in the country, or at a residence in a foreign city, had he possessed such, with comparative indifference. But the turreted family "palazzo" in his native city, his fortress in time of civil broil, the patriarchal home of several branches and generations of his race, the manifestation and evidence of the rank and importance of his clan, was more in his eyes than mere stone and timber. His strongest passion, his family pride, saw in the old ancestral walls the corporeal presentment of the family name. And the levelling of the massive building with the soil, was the extremest ignominy an enemy could inflict, and was felt by the doomed race as a symbol of the extinction of their name and stock for ever.

These were the feelings in that old man's heart, when the hangman asked if he had well observed the spectacle before him, as he led him away to the one other scene that remained for him. In the piazza it was the nerves of the old man's body that were to be tortured.

A powerful horse was there ready prepared with a stout plank attached to its tail. To this plank the Orso was bound in such a manner that the feet were nearest to the horse, and the head passing beyond the length of the board, fell back upon the stones. In this manner he was dragged twice round the piazza; and then, though by that time nearly, if not quite dead, his side was opened, the heart torn from the quivering carcase, and rent to pieces before the people.

But it is probable, that all unpleasant traces of these things were properly wiped away and removed, the next morning, when the Countess, in procession, passed over those same flagstones, on her way to the cathedral to "celebrate Te Deum," and do other appropriate "Divine Service."