to quiet them, and persuade them to let
him do his duty. They, however, would hear
nothing, but attacked him and his men, killed
several, took others into houses, and flung them
from the windows, to the great ignominy and
contumely of public justice." All this, however,
could not have mattered much, or have been
worth recording, but that an unlucky shot from
one of the bargello's men killed the noble
Raimondo Orsini. The bargello at once fled from
Rome, knowing full well that neither pope nor
law could save his life from the vengeance of the
Orsini. But the noble anger of that proud
house was not to be thus balked. And Ludovico
Orsini, the brother of Raimondo, and the
gentleman with whom the reader will have to
make further acquaintance, avenged his brother,
and asserted the honour of the clan, by murdering
the lieutenant-general of police, the officer
on whom the bargello depended, as he was
coming down from the papal palace on Monte
Cavallo.

Such was the Roman world to which Count
Claudio Accoramboni was bringing his daughter
and four sons to seek their fortunes about the
year 1578.

But in accordance with the saying, that when
things are at the worst they must mend, there
was a change preparing for Rome and its lawless
nobles, and almost equally villanous outlawed
bandits, in a manner and from a quarter from
which no human being in Rome dreamed of
expecting it.

Among the cardinals resident in the city was
an old man whose infirmities made him seem yet
older than he was, and whose quiet and retired
life was remarkable only for its purity and for
its perfect inoffensiveness to any man alive.
Nor were the social position or connexions of
this good old man more calculated to draw
attention on him than the unpretending modesty
of his blameless life. For the old Cardinal di
Montalto was the son of a peasant of the March
of Ancona; had begun life as an humble mendicant
friar; and having first risen by his virtues
and talents to be the general of his order, had
by this road reached the cardinalate. Yet it
was on this obscure old man that the eyes of his
fellows of the Sacred College had turned as the
most likely candidate for the papacy, on the
evidently not distant day when Gregory the
Thirteenth, despite all his precautions, should
not be able to live any longer. There were not
wanting members of the college bearing the
names of Medici, Este, Farnese, and others of
the great princely families of Italy. But every
man was afraid of his fellow. Most men in
Rome at that day, whether clerical or lay, had
so much cause to fear! And it was thought
that no man need fear poor old Cardinal di
Montalto, who had never given offence to any one,
or seemed capable of conceiving a feeling of
animosity or resentment. Besides the very
manifest infirmities of old Peretti — that was the
Cardinal di Montalto's family name — his tottering
gait and bent body were, on the principle
above mentioned, all recommendations in his
favour. It was clear he could not last long.
And his short papacy would give rival parties
time, as each hoped, to strengthen itself, and to
be ready then for the struggle which they feared
to undertake at the present moment. As for
the old man himself, when spoken to on the
subject, he would treat the matter as one in
which a man so near the grave could have little
interest; and with a mild sigh and gentle shake
of his bent head, followed by a hollow cough,
would give his hearers to understand how
entirely his mind was occupied on other things.

Rome, however, though quite agreeing with
the Cardinal di Montalto in the opinion that he
could not last long, yet thought it probable that
he would last longer than the octogenarian
pope; and considered that for such brief space
he would be the most convenient, inoffensive,
meek pope that could be found. Despite
himself, therefore, Felix Peretti, Cardinal di
Montalto, occupied an important position in the
Roman world when the Accoramboni family
arrived in the Eternal City.

CHAPTER II. THREE STRINGS TO THE
HEROINE'S BOW.

THE "sensation" caused by the first appearance
of the beauty on this great theatre and
focus of all the grandeurs of the world,
exceeded all that the proprietors of the new "great
attraction" had promised themselves. All Rome
talked of nothing else than the lovely and all-
accomplished Vittoria. Cardinals met to
discuss the rival pretensions of the French and
Spanish courts, but found themselves neglecting
such trifling matters to expatiate, quite en
connaisseurs, on the marvellous perfections of the
young provincial from the Marches. Princes of
the noblest and most powerful families of Italy,
young and old, single or married, swore that the
bewitching stranger was worthy of promotion
to the honour of becoming — the plaything of an
hour to any one of them. Father, mother, and
brothers, all found themselves suddenly changed
into people of importance; sought for, courted
and made much of by magnates lay and
ecclesiastical, into whose presence they would have
hardly ventured to come cap in hand a few
short weeks ago, In a word, their speculation
promised excellently well; and only prudence
was needed to make the most of it. Very much
prudence; Italian prudence, of a far more long-
sighted and subtly calculating kind than is
ordinarily known to the more off-hand and open
men of a less guileful race. This excess of
prudence, and the exaggerated value attached to it,
and admiration of it, is a marked and peculiar
characteristic of the Italian character. It is
not a pleasing one. And were it not that there
seem to be reasons for believing that the same
peculiarity marked the old Roman character, it
might be attributed to the unhappy social
organisation which has for so many centuries
sown the field of society broadcast with dangers
and pitfals of all kinds, so as to make every
man afraid of his neighbour. It is difficult not
to place somewhat of the strange cautiousness