flatter the victor, and to turn against him at the
first misfortune. The battle of Pavia, fought
on the 24th February, 1525, upset completely
all these calculations, and the proposed policy
of the senate of Venice. French influence was
ruined for many a year to come in Italy; and
Venice, with her recently signed treaty at Rome,
stood alone in face of Spain, whom she had
deceived with the utmost perfidy.

A month had elapsed since the sanguinary
battle of Pavia, and the negotiations of the
Council of Ten still remained a mystery. Yet
it was supposed that the republic was
endeavouring to calm the anger of Charles the Fifth.
At this juncture the heir of the Gambara might
become an important personage, and render
essential service. His family in Lombardy had
espoused the Spanish side, and he might act as
intermediary with the emperor, as Trivulce had
formerly done with Francis the First. The
Council of Forty saw this at once as soon as the
name of Gambara was pronounced. Pascal was
not put to the torture.

At dead of night Pascal was removed from
the prisons of the Forty to those under the
leads in the ducal palace. Three state
inquisitors, with masks on, proceeded at once to his
examination. They reported that his
communications were so important that the council
ought not to hesitate in giving an attentive
and an indulgent ear to the young man's
statements.

Great was the disappointment of the public
that this interesting case was suddenly stopped.
The slightest reflection upon the acts of the
Council of Ten at Venice was punishable with
death, within four-and-twenty hours, so the
whole city very prudently abstained from
discussing the subject. Whatever was the fate
of Pascal, no one expected to hear anything of
him again, once he had passed the threshold of
the hall of the supreme council. Some
persons, however, more curious than the rest,
made inquiries at Brescia, convinced that the
young Gambara would come off unhurt. A
month after it was whispered at Venice that
the Gambara had been restored to their
possessions, and that Pascal had been seen at
Milan with Duke Sforza in conference with the
Marquis d'Avalos, with a safe-conduct from
the Council of Ten, styling him their well-beloved
son.

This is what took place. After the first
examination communicated to the Ten by the three
inquisitors, the prisoner was brought before the
secret tribunal. In the small council chamber
there may still be seen two false closets. One
is a door leading to the prison stairs, the other
is the torture-room. Pascal was led in by one
of these doors, and the other door was thrown
open, displaying its horrible paraphernalia. In
his presence it was debated whether it would
not be as well to put the prisoner to the
ordinary torture. One of the members, feigning
pity for the youth of the prisoner, proposed
that he should be exempted if he made a full
confession. The tribunal assented, and asked
Pascal if he was willing to do so, without
concealment, to deserve the indulgence of the
council. Pascal took a solemn oath not to
conceal anything. He was taken back to his cell,
and writing-materials were placed before him.
The display of the instruments of torture had
the desired effect, for his confession was as
explicit as could be wished. Pascal took three
days to complete it. A copy of it, in a different
handwriting, is extant in the MS. entitled
"Caso dei Gambareschi," with the heading:
"Suplicazione di Pasquale Gambara ai capi del'
eccelso conseio dei Dicci, scritta con umiltà,
circa i casi di Brescia nel 1516 e la morte
d' Antonio Toldo, in Venetia.*
* Case of the Gambara family: Petition of Pascal
Gambara to the heads of the eminent Council of
Ten, written in humility, respecting the events of
Brescia in 1510, and the death of Antonio Toldo in
Venice.

CHAPTER IV.

"MOST noble Seigneurs, I, Pascal Gambara,
implore on my knees the clemency of this most
noble state, of which I am an unhappy and
misguided son. Deprived from my earliest years
of my natural counsellors and advisers, I have
committed great errors, and I shall make an
humble confession of them before this most
high tribunal, that the sincerity of my language
and the earnestness of my repentance may make
me a worthy object of pity.

"Your excellencies are aware that my father,
being a partisan of the Spanish faction at
Brescia, was deprived of his possessions, which
were endowed upon Jean-Jacques Trivulce. My
mother died shortly before the capture of
Brescia. My uncle, Hubert Gambara, before
leaving for the Roman court, secretly entrusted
me to the care of a peasant woman in the
neighbourhood of Bassano, Marcellina Aliga, who had
been my nurse. I was then nine years of age,
and I remained three years with Marcellina,
under the name of Pascal Ziobà, a name that I
bear at the present moment. My uncle thought
it advisable that I should remain on the
Venetian territory, in case it should one day please
your lordships to honour me with your favour,
and that the law against refugees might not be
to my disadvantage. This is why a story was
fabricated that I had been stolen by gipsies,
and that no one knew my origin.

"As I have already declared before the courts,
the renowned Titian met me by chance at
Bassano, took a fancy to me, made me accompany
him to Venice, and instructed me in the
art of painting. It is in this magnificent city
that an adventure plunged me into the abyss in
which I now find myself. It is now sixteen
months that, walking one day near Saint
Giuliano, I beheld a young lady richly dressed, and
of remarkably beauty. She was followed by
two female servants, the one bearing her fan,
the other her prayer-books. Suddenly an elderly
lady came out of a shop and placed herself
before the younger one, imploring her, in
energetic language, to listen to what she had