Dark days.—The great question begins to be answered.

In 1548 Peregrino Morato fell ill. The master's chair was empty; the scholar's desks,—those school–like looking desks, which we may still see sculptured on the monumental stones of old sixteenth century professors in academic Bologna—were vacant; the last new edition issued by Aldus, beautiful with the delicately–cut types of Francesco de Bologna, and damp from the press of neighbouring Venice, remained half–cut; and the wearied scholar, old, we are told,[72] and broken down before his time, lay on his poor pallet.

Olympia hurried from the court to her father's bedside. It was the first call to her of painful duty, a great epoch in every life! Suddenly from the midst of her bright–hued dream–life, her "Muses' haunts," and gay poetical imaginings, she was called to face some of the sternest realities, that post themselves like sentinels inevitable in the smoothest path of mortal existence. Suffering to be ended only by dissolution,—the mysterious departure of the loved one for that dim uncertain cloudland, the existence and nature of which have hardly hitherto been realised, but which henceforward will be invested with all the interest attaching to the home of those who have been our home–mates,—the newness of that solitude that first teaches the startled heart the meaning of those dreary words, never! never more!—these are the divining rods that first reveal the hidden wealth dormant beneath the flower–decked surface of many a gifted nature.

Olympia's loving watch by the bedside of her father was considerably prolonged, as he sank gradually to his rest; and finally closed his eyes tranquil in the assurance that the position which his Olympia's rare talents and acquirements had attained for her, would enable her to be the stay and protectress of her three young sisters and younger brother.

But while this scene was passing in the humble home of the worn–out scholar, events of a very different sort were in progress in the palace home she had so recently left.

Anne D'Este, Olympia's friend and companion, though five years her junior, was now seventeen. And her father, the Duke, who had in the earlier part of this year been to Turin for the purpose of meeting there Henry II. of France, the nephew of the Duchess RenÉe, had then arranged with the King a marriage between her and Francis of Lorraine, afterwards well known to history as the Duc de Guise. On the return of Duke Hercules to Ferrara the marriage was solemnised on the 29th of July, 1548, Louis of Bourbon standing proxy for the bridegroom. "The citizens of Ferrara," we are told,[73] "were not altogether well pleased with this marriage; but they constrained themselves to put on an air of festivity." There was but little of this, we may be sure, or we should have had the usual accounts of feastings and processions, with the details of the dishes and the dresses, and the cost thereof. The marriage seems to have been done with business–like simplicity; and the young Princess, regretted by a whole city, "who," says Muratori,[74] "loved and reverenced her beyond all belief," was sent off, to find shortly enough,—she too, as well as her old playmate,—that life had other things in store for her than classical philosophy and dilettante poetry. The Duke, her father, accompanied her as far as the frontier of his states, her mother and two sisters as far as Mantua, and certain ladies of the court as far as Grenoble; and there, the links of the chain that bound her to her home having been thus gradually severed, she was launched into the strange life before her.

Thus, when Olympia had paid the last duties to her father, and returned to the palace, her friend was no longer there, and she found herself dismissed under circumstances that showed her to have fallen under the displeasure of the Duke. This blow followed the other so closely that Olympia admits herself to have been beaten down to the ground by them. And in truth the burden suddenly laid on those young shoulders, which had never yet learned that life had any burdens which could gall the bearer, was a heavy one. A sick mother, three young sisters, and an infant brother in that poverty–stricken mourning home, all looking up to Olympia, the pride of the family, the admired, successful Olympia, the inmate of the palace, whose friends and intimate companions were the great ones of the land, and she driven forth into the cold shade of disgrace, just at the moment when there was so much need that some gleams from the brilliant sunshine of her prosperity should have cheered the cold home of the widow and orphaned sisters;—the burden was a heavy one for that young heart, making her first acquaintanceship with sorrow.

But Olympia struggled bravely with her difficulties.[75] "Haunts of the Muses," and brilliant heathen Undine–life were all left far behind; and that salvation question began to be answered.

The cause of Olympia's disgrace is not clearly apparent. M. Bonnet, who writes her biography with the sympathy of a co–religionist, attributes[76] it to the evil machinations of one Jerome Bolsec, a name of very ill savour in the annals of Calvinistic Protestantism. The suspicion that Bolsec had a hand in this, as in so much other mischief, would seem to rest on some phrases from a letter of John Sinapi to Calvin, cited by M. Bonnet from the inedited correspondence of that intolerant Geneva pope. But the few words given do not seem at all conclusive on the subject. It may be that the context is more so.

Jerome Hermes Bolsec was at all events a very sorry knave, capable enough of any wickedness of the sort. He had been a Carmelite monk at Paris, and having got into trouble by unorthodox preaching there, fled across the mountains, says Bayle,[77] "to RenÉe of France, Duchess of Ferrara, the common asylum of those who were persecuted for adhering to the new doctrines." The Duchess made him her almoner, as we learn from Sinapi. And Bayle says that he married and practised as a physician at Ferrara, till he was exiled for some unknown cause. He went thence to Geneva, and there had the fatal misfortune to differ from Calvin on some points of doctrine. In one of his pastorals to the Swiss churches, the latter recounts how one day at sermon time "this rogue got up and said ... that men are not saved because they are elect, but are elect because they believe, and that no man is damned by the mere decree of God—nudo Dei placito—but those only who have by their own acts deprived themselves of the election common to all." Whereupon, says Theodore Beza,[78] Calvin "so confuted him, belaboured him, overwhelmed him with testimony from holy writ, passages from St. Augustin, and weighty arguments, that all present, except the brazen–faced monk himself, were ashamed of the figure he cut." Plenty of reason for being ashamed of themselves for all parties concerned doubtless. But Calvin, who was not wont to be contented with mere argumentative belabouring of those who disagreed with him, had him forthwith hauled off to prison, and finally banished from the Canton, as he might have anticipated, when he ventured on the dangerous enterprise of attacking the pet tenet of the Geneva pope's tremendous devil worship.

Bolsec went to Berne, but Calvin's resentment followed him there, and finally harried him out of Switzerland. So he returned to his old faith to spite the reformers, and published lives of Beza and Calvin filled with calumnies so gross that even the controversialists of the Romish Church have admitted their falsehood, and given up Jerome Bolsec as a discredit to either or any party.

It may be admitted then that this "most slippery fellow, Almoner to the Court of Ferrara, by your leave," as Sinapi calls him,—vaferrimus in aul Ferrariense, si diis placet, Eleemosynarius,—was capable enough of making mischief, if his ill passions prompted him to do so. But as he was on his Protestant tack when under the protection of the Duchess, it hardly seems probable that he should have practised against Olympia by denouncing her as a heretic to the Catholics. Yet it seems plain[79] that her shortcomings in the matter of orthodoxy were the real cause of her disgrace at court. The Duchess, who, as has been seen, was much attached to her, did not, we are told, attempt to interfere in her favour. And the most probable explanation of this abandonment is to be found in the supposition, that the suspicion and ill–repute under which the Duchess herself laboured in the matter of religion, made the danger of openly defending an heretical delinquent greater than she was willing to meet.

"The Duke," writes M. Bonnet,[80] "urged as he had been for some time past to give proofs of his fidelity to the Apostolic See, watched with a jealous eye the different movements of his court. He believed blindly such calumnies as always find a ready echo in a palace. His wrath, increased by the long suppression of his suspicions, burst forth in violence the more terrible. Olympia was the first victim."

The Duchess was herself by no means in a secure position. When a little after the period in question, one Matthew Ori, a Dominican monk, was sent from Paris to Ferrara, as Grand Inquisitor, Henry II. "who knew well enough which foot RenÉe was lame of,"[81] especially charged him "to heal her." The monk came and did his best, "gaining some ground, as it seemed by his efforts." For "the Duchess feared her husband, and his terrible method of proceeding against those accused of offences in matters of religion."

The Duke's "method" in spiritual affairs became indeed more and more compendious and energetic, as Rome's fears and exigencies became more urgent.

Paul III. died on the 10th of November, 1549, and was succeeded by the Cardinal del Monte, who took the name of Julius III.; an easy and good–natured, though passionate old gentleman, who loved pleasure, quiet, and luxury,—inscribed over the palace he built, "Honeste voluptarier cunctis fas honestis esto!"—"Let all honest men enjoy themselves decently without scruple!"—and troubled himself as little about the business of life as might be.

This was not the sort of man for a persecutor. But the progress of the Inquisition during his reign is a remarkable instance of the degree in which the policy of the Church overrides the individual tendencies of the man who may be the temporary occupant of St. Peter's chair, whenever either the imbecility or the scruples of the latter may seem to endanger the interests of the corporation over which he presides. Whether the moderate, politic, and worldly–minded statesman, Paul III., the poco–curante voluptuary Julius III., or the pure and saintly sage Marcellus II., were pontiff, the crusade against free thought knew no relaxation. Caraffa and his Inquisitors pursued their work at least with zeal and unflagging perseverance. Duke Hercules took his cue readily enough as to the duties of an orthodox prince; and as he had the misfortune of labouring under the ill–repute that attached to a wife of notoriously heretical inclinations, it was all the more necessary that he should prove his attachment to the Holy See by the most unmistakeable zeal for the purity of the faith.

Under these circumstances the arrest of a young man named Fannio, at Faenza, for holding and disseminating heterodox opinions, was a lucky chance to be made the most of.

At first, however, it seemed that he would turn craven, and show no sport. The unhappy man had a wife tenderly attached to him, and her tears and entreaties induced him to recant, and accept his liberty as the price of declaring that he believed what his persecutors and judges knew perfectly well he did not believe. But his life became intolerable to him under such conditions. Though he had forced his tongue to utter the lying words that were the price demanded for his life, he could not live up to his lie; so he "relapsed," was again arrested, and this time thrown into the dungeons of Ferrara.

Some time elapsed, while his "trial" for heresy was going through the regular edifying forms before the tribunal of the Inquisition at Rome. Condemnation was of course perfectly certain; and the terror among the numerous band of more or less suspected Protestants at Ferrara was great. Yet, hazardous as it must have been to attract attention by any such manifestation of sympathy, we are assured,[82] that many visited him in his prison, and "were consoled by his exhortations." It seems strange that such visits should have been permitted. The Inquisition which had thrown him into prison for preaching, could hardly intend that he should have the means of continuing the offence with all the extra prestige of martyrdom. And the fact would seem to indicate, that the "secular arm," or at least those subordinate executive officers of its will who had not the same reasons for being in love with orthodoxy that moved the prince, had little sympathy with the new persecuting tribunal recently established among them, and seconded its intentions as little as might be.

But it is still more surprising to find, that among these clandestine visitors to this poor Fannio in his prison were the lady Lavinia della Rovere and her friend Olympia. Lavinia then dared to remain on terms of intimacy with the disgraced favourite, when all, as she complains deserted her. Lavinia ventured to seek her friend out in her humble home, and risk subjecting herself to the same suspicions which weighed so heavily on Olympia. But surely this dangerous expedition indicates a notable change of mind and feeling in both these young women, since but a year or so ago. It is but a very little time since those conversations, in which the difficulties of the doctrine of predestination prevented the young friends from accepting the religion of the reformers; and since Olympia's state of mind on religious matters was such as to lead her subsequently to think that "it would have been all over with her and her salvation," if she had remained longer at court. And now, after the lapse of a few months, we find the youthful pair sufficiently interested in the faith for which a martyr is about to suffer, to visit him in his dungeon, and "find consolation" from his exhortations!

Or should we rather suppose, that deeper thought, a more serious interest, and ultimate complete adoption of the persecuted faith on the part of Olympia and her friend, were the consequences, rather than the cause of their visit to Fannio in his dungeon; and that mere female compassion and sympathy with a fellow–unbeliever at least, if not as yet a fellow–believer, led them to the prison. It is probable enough, that the first heart–deep seeds of conviction fell into Olympia's mind during that solemn and affecting prison conference. It is a property of persecution to operate thus on generous and noble hearts. The desolate, disheartening, and precarious situation of Olympia's own fortunes, and the severe lesson she had so recently received on the vanity and instability of worldly prosperity, were well calculated to prepare her heart for the martyr's teaching, and open it to the emotional reception of a faith, which, according to the avowal of its adherents, cannot approve itself to the reasoning faculties.

With a strange and solemn authority,—almost as of one speaking from beyond the awful boundary line, he was so soon to cross—the words of that noble heroic man must have sunk deep into the hearts of the young women. For noble and heroic,—let more ignoble natures chatter what trash they may of gratified vanity, obstinacy, and such futilities in the vain attempt to bring down the heroic to their own level,—noble and heroic, with a heroism inferior to none other practicable by man, and wholly unmodified by the intellectual value of the conviction for which a martyr dies—is the soul, that true to its own indefeasible independence refuses, in the face of all the worst the body and the heart lacerated in its affections can suffer, to abdicate its right of self–sovereignty.

And like all noble emotions, it is a contagious heroism. While the terrible circumstances of the place and scene, never to be forgotten by either of them, spoke fearful warning of the not improbable consequences of the nascent convictions even then rising in their minds, their courage was stimulated to confront whatever danger might arise from the exercise of free thought.

So Fannio and Duke Hercules both had their triumph. The martyr hung, burned, and the ashes of his body thrown to the winds in the market–place of Ferrara, died a free man, lord of his own soul, and conscious of having implanted in many another breast the faith for which he suffered. The Duke showed his subjects what came of presuming to have an opinion on matters of faith, secured the approbation of his own conscience, and approved himself a faithful and meritorious son of Holy Mother Church.

It was not however till 1551, some three years after Olympia's disgrace and ejection from the palace, that Fannio was, after long imprisonment, burned on the Piazza of Ferrara, the first, but not the last victim of the Duke's anxiety to conciliate the Church. And we have other indications, besides this notable prison scene, that this time of difficulty and tribulation was a period of rapid spiritual growth to her. It is difficult to imagine a more violent contrast, than that between the brilliant palace life which eight years had made habitual to her, and the pale existence, made up wholly of those elements both so new to her, duties and difficulties, which passed in the narrow home overshadowed by the cloud of disgrace, and tenanted by a helpless family of five women and an infant brother, whose education was one of Olympia's most pleasing duties.

Small space in her day now for polishing Greek and Latin verses, or composing dissertations on the Stoic philosophy! But two fragments of four lines each, one in Latin, and one in Greek, have been preserved, as the productions of this period of her life, passed in quite other "haunts" than those of the Muses. The old classic "Grecian virgin" tone is no longer discoverable in them; and the topics show that her mind was busy with an entirely different order of ideas.

Olympia was now about twenty–three years old, and still single; and interestingly enough the Latin quatrain above mentioned indicates that her mind had been dwelling on the subject in connection with her religious aspirations:—

"QuÆ virgo est, nisi mente quoque est et corpore virgo,
HÆc laudem nullam virginitatis habet.

QuÆ virgo est, uni Christo nisi tota dicata est,
HÆc Veneris virgo est, totaque mancipium."

Or, in lines as poor and flat as the original, but not more so:—

"The virgin, who is not such in her soul,
Small praise of her virginity can have,

If Christ alone have not her being's whole,
She is but Venus' bondsmaid and her slave."

Curious to note, that the mental daring which had led to rebellion against Church authority on questions of justification and free will, had not strength of wing or originality enough to see the truth in a much simpler matter, detect the fallacy of the Church's entire system of celibacy, and comprehend that there can be nothing meritorious in wilfully abandoning all the most sacred duties of womanhood.

The Greek lines mentioned compare the consolation that an afflicted heart derives from the contemplation of a crucified Saviour, with the healing virtue of the brazen serpent set up by Moses in the wilderness.

Thus passed two years of trouble and sorrow, which left our Undine–Muse a very different being from what she had been before their discipline. That it was painful enough may be read in a letter from her to Celio Curione, in which she looks back on these dark days.

"After my father's death, I remained alone, betrayed, abandoned by those who ought to have supported me, and exposed to the most unjust persecution. My sisters were involved in my misfortune, and received only ingratitude in return for the devotion and services of so many years. How great was my grief under these afflictions you may easily believe. Not one of those we had in other times deemed our friends, dared to manifest the least interest in us; and we were in so deep a pit of adversity, that it appeared impossible for us ever to escape from it."

There was at least one friend who had been tried in the furnace of adversity, and not found wanting, the brave and noble–hearted Lavinia della Rovere. But this exception Curio was able to supply for himself. He knew that Lavinia had remained, and was still the friend and frequent correspondent of Olympia.

Our heroine has thus been brought to her twenty–fourth year. The present is hard and unkindly around her. Suspicion, neglect, and all the anxious ignoble cares attendant on poverty, had by a sudden scene–shifting taken the places of luxurious ease, admiration, flattery, and troops of friends. The future was dark and precarious. The bad times were every day becoming worse for those on whom any taint of heresy had ever rested.

In short, our gifted Muse stood bare and desolate, and shivering in the midst of a very unharmonious world in most sad and pitiable plight.

But the salvation question was beginning to be answered.