authorities, were naturally to be expected to be
soldiers of a very different stamp from the
daredevil ruffians in the pay of Orsini.

When these manifold preparations were all
ready, three of the principal citizens of the town
were sent to Orsini to ask if he would surrender;
intimating that in doing so lay his only hope of
mercy.

The noble felon took a very lofty tone with
these ambassadors. If all the forces assembled
against him were immediately withdrawn, he
said, he would consent to meet the magistrates
with three or four only of his followers, "to
treat respecting the matter," on the express
condition that he should be at liberty to return
to his house whensoever he so pleased.

The magistrates, on receiving this insolent
reply, sent the bearers of it back again, with
orders to assure Orsini that if he did not at
once and unconditionally surrender himself,
they would raze the house to the ground.
He answered, that he would die rather than
make such a submission. So the attack was
begun.

The magistrates might, one of the narrators
tells us, have levelled the house with the ground
by one discharge of all the artillery they had.
And they were blamed by public opinion for not
doing so, inasmuch as the course adopted by
them involved a greater risk of the possibility
that the besieged might make a sortie. And
then, said the townsfolk, who knew what the
result might have been? But the worthy chief
of the Ten, who, in the midst of his vigorous
measures "had yet a prudent mind," and did
not forget that St. Mark would have a bill to
pay for the mischief done, when it was all over,
was bent on unkennelling the vermin with as
little damage to property as might be.

One or two guns accordingly were directed
against a colonnade in front of the house, which
speedily came down. This did not seem,
however, to abate a jot the courage of the besieged,
who kept up a brisk fire from the windows,
without, however, doing other damage than
wounding one townsman in the shoulder. Some
cannon of heavier calibre were then directed
against one corner of the main building, and at
the first discharge brought down a large mass of
wall, and with it one Pandolfo Lesprati, of
Camerino, "a man of great courage, and a
bandit of much importance. He was outlawed
in the States of the Church, and the illustrious
Signor Vitelli had put a price of four hundred
crowns on his head for the murder of Vincent
Vitelli, who had been killed in his carriage by
stabs given by Ludovico Orsini by the arm of
Pandolfo. Stunned by his fall, he could not
move, and a certain man, a servant of the Lista
family, advanced and very bravely cut off his
head, and carried it to the magistrates at the
fortress."

Another shot brought down another fragment
of the house, and with it another of the chiefs
of Ludovico's band, crushed to death in the
ruins. Orsini now became aware that further
resistance was hopeless. It was evident that
the magistrates were in earnest in their
determination to have him in their power; and
bidding his people not to surrender till they had
orders from him, he came out and gave himself
up. He, probably, still thought that the senate
would not think of proceeding to extremity with
"a man of his sort," as he frequently said. And
when brought before the magistrates he behaved
in this supercilious manner, "leaning against
the balcony, and cutting his nails with a little
pair of scissors," while they questioned him.
When told that he would be imprisoned, he
desired only that it might be in some place "fit
for a man of his quality;" and on that condition
he consented to send orders to his followers to
surrender.

The town soldiers, therefore, entered the house,
and marched off to prison, two and two, all the
survivors they found in it; and "the bodies of
the slain were left to the dogs!" Ludovico
Orsini was strangled in his prison the same
night. Two of his men. were hung the next
day; thirteen the day after; "and the gallows,"
says the contemporary chronicler, "is still
standing for the execution of the remaining
nineteen, on the first day that is not a festival.
But the executioner is excessively fatigued,
and the people are, as it were, agonised by
the sight of so many deaths. So they have
put off the remaining executions for a couple of
days."

And so ends the history of the marvellously
beautiful Vittoria Accoramboni and her two
husbands; a striking, but by no means unique
or abnormal sample of a state of society
produced and fashioned, according to the certain
and invariable operation of God's moral laws, by
the same evil influences, lay and spiritual—
absolutely the same in kind, if somewhat
mitigated in intensity—from which Italy is now
straining every nerve to escape.

The Second Journey of
THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER,
A SERIES OF OCCASIONAL JOURNEYS,
BY CHARLES DICKENS,
Will appear Next Week.

Now ready, price 5s.,
OLD LEAVES:
Gathered from HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
By W. HENRY WILLS.
London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.