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His wife, Vannina, was a woman of timid and flexible nature, who, though devoted to her husband, fell into the snares of his enemies. During his absence on an embassy to Algiers the Genoese induced her to leave her home at Marseilles and to seek refuge in their city, persuading her that this step would secure the safety of her child.
The girl who met the Austrian soldier at the fair at Peschiera " "Ah, Vannina," I said; "but she is dead, your excellency." "Dead!" She turned white and the purse dropped from her hand. I picked it up and held it out to her, but she put back my hand. "That is for masses, then," she said; and with that she moved away toward the house.
What confidence could his fellow-countrymen have felt in him if he had not punished his wife, who tried to treat with Genoa?" "Vannina," said the sailor, "had started off without her husband's leave. Sampiero did quite right to wring her neck!" "But," said Miss Lydia, "it was to save her husband, it was out of love for him, that she was going to ask his pardon from the Genoese."
Confronting his guilty spouse, deaf to every plea for pity, hardened against the tender caresses of his children, the Corsican hero utters judgment. "Madam," he sternly says, "in the face of crime and disgrace, there is no other resort but death." Vannina at first falls unconscious, but, regaining her senses, she clasps her children to her breast and begs life for their sake.
The murder of Vannina had made the Ornani his deadly foes. In order to avenge her blood, they played into the hands of the Genoese, and laid a plot by which the noblest of the Corsicans was brought to death. First, they gained over to their scheme a monk of Bastelica, called Ambrogio, and Sampiero's own squire and shield-bearer, Vittolo.
Sampiero now brought his wife from Aix to Marseilles, preserving the most absolute silence on the way, and there, on entering his house, he killed her with his own hand. It is said that he loved Vannina passionately; and when she was dead, he caused her to be buried with magnificence in the church of S. Francis. Like Giudice, Sampiero fell at last a prey to treachery.
"The pity and tenderness," says Buonaparte, "which she should have awakened found a soul thenceforward closed to the power of sentiment. Vannina died. She died by the hands of Sampiero." Neither the publishers of Valence, nor those of Dôle, nor those of Auxonne, would accept the work. At Paris one was finally found who was willing to take a half risk.
It means reproaching him with not having avenged his wrong. Who mentioned the rimbecco to you?" "Yesterday, at Marseilles," replied Miss Lydia hurriedly, "the captain of the schooner used the word." "And whom was he talking about?" inquired Orso eagerly. "Oh, he was telling us some odd story about the time yes, I think it was about Vannina d'Ornano."
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