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Nevertheless, through the effect of her irresistible attractions, the Duchess di Bracciano became the centre of a cosmopolitan society which, in the midst of the noisiest diversions, debated daily in the capital of the papal dominions the weightiest problems of contemporary politics.
In a word, what was the mode of life, and what was the career of the Duchess di Bracciano, at Rome, before she proceeded to make application of the science she must there have acquired upon another and a wider stage?
The garden in which Vittoria meets Bracciano is the villa of Magnanapoli; Zanche, the Moorish slave, combines Vittoria's waiting-woman, Caterina, and the Greek sorceress who so mysteriously dogged Marcello's footsteps to the death. The suspicion of Bracciano's murder is used to introduce a quaint episode of Italian poisoning.
The last page of the damaged sheet was 212, and this is 217. In fact, since Rinaldo, who in the earlier fragment stole the key of the Duchess' treasure by exchanging it for another very much like it, is now on the made-up sheet in the palace of the Dukes of Bracciano, the story seems to me to be advancing to a conclusion of some kind. I hope it is as clear to you as it is to me.
Rinaldo saw no safer refuge than to make forthwith for the cellar where the treasures of the Bracciano fam- ily no doubt lay hid. As light of foot as Camilla sung by the Latin poet, he flew to the entrance to the Baths of Vespasian.
The coolness with which he first received the news of Francesco Peretti's death, the dissimulation with which he met the Pope's expression of sympathy in a full consistory, his reserve in greeting friends on ceremonial visits of condolence, and, more than all, the self-restraint he showed in the presence of the Duke of Bracciano, impressed the society of Rome with the belief that he was of a singularly moderate and patient temper.
"The history of your last literary quarrel!" Dinah observed. "For pity's sake, come back to the Duke of Bracciano," cried Monsieur de Clagny. To the despair of all the company, Lousteau went on with the made-up sheet. I then wished to make sure of my misfortune that I might be avenged under the protection of Providence and the Law. The Duchess guessed my intentions.
To escape from these different causes of domestic ennui, the Duchess di Bracciano varied her sojourn in Italy by long and frequent visits to France, going thither to present, by clever and well-timed calculation, the spectacle of a Roman princess whom no one even within the grandiose precincts of Versailles surpassed either in true French esprit or steady devotion to the Sovereign.
"If I stir from this spot I shall never find it again," thought Ri- naldo, when he had recovered his usual presence of mind. "If I knock, I shall be discovered. What am I to do?" "Who is here?" asked the voice. "Hallo!" cried the brigand; "do the toads here talk?" "I am the Duke of Bracciano.
At the conclusion of the magnificent repast which awaited him, the legate, in the presence of his royal host, of the Dukes of Mantua and Bracciano, the Princes Juan and Antonio de Medicis, and the Sieur de Bellegarde, announced to the young Queen the entire satisfaction of the Sovereign-Pontiff at the union upon which he was about to pronounce a blessing: to which assurance she replied with grace and dignity.
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