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Ser Niccola Tuldo, turning on her eyes that still retained their savage ferocity, cried out: "Begone! I hate you, because you are of Sienna, the city that slays me. Oh! Sienna, she-wolf indeed, that with her vile claws tears out the throat of a noble gentleman of Perugia! Horrid she-wolf! unclean and inhuman hell-hound!"
A young gentleman from Perugia, Niccolo Tuldo by name, had been condemned to death for speaking critically of the Sienese Government. It does not appear that he was a serious political conspirator, but simply a young man whose aristocratic sympathies led him thoughtlessly to the use of haughty or bitter speech. But a parvenu Government is always sensitive.
We hear of a man at this time being condemned and executed because he had not invited one of the Riformatori to a feast! Death was lightly inflicted in those days: probably it was no more lightly suffered than in our own. We have vivid accounts of the incredulity with which Niccolo Tuldo received his sentence incredulity leading to horror, to rage, to rebellion, to black despair.
But Catherine made answer: "Nay! brother, what is a city, what are all the cities of the earth, beside the City of God and the holy Angels? I am Catherine, and I am come to call you to the everlasting nuptials." The sweet voice and beaming face shed a sudden peace and radiance over the savage soul of Niccola Tuldo. He remembered the days of his innocence, and cried like a child.
In bringing Niccolo Tuldo to so illumined an end that he recognized the judgment-place as holy, and died in full accord with the will of God, Catherine achieved a great marvel which only Christianity can compass: she lifted one of those seemingly purposeless and cruel accidents of destiny which stagger faith, into unity with the organic work of the world's redemption.
A maiden so pure, fired with so sweet charity, could nowhere have budded and blossomed but at Sienna, which under all its defilements and amid all its crimes, was still the City of the Blessed Virgin. Apprised by the Magistrates, Catherine betook herself to the public gaol on the morning of the day Ser Niccola Tuldo was to die.
But their city, which went clad in silk and cloth-of-gold, was ever ready to slip betwixt their fingers, like a lascivious, false-hearted wanton; and fear and anxiety made them implacable. In the year 1370 they discovered that a nobleman of Perugia, Ser Niccola Tuldo, had been sent by the Pope to stir up the Siennese, in connivance with the Kaiser, to deliver up the city to the Holy Father.
The gaoler coming in to know the cause of the uproar, found him covered with blood and foaming at the mouth. Ser Niccola Tuldo never left off howling with rage for three days and three nights. The thing was reported to the Mount of the Reformers. The members of the most august Signory, after despatching their more pressing business, examined into the case of the unhappy man in the condemned cell.
The advice was approved by all the Signory, who resolved to invite Catherine to visit Niccola Tuldo in his prison. In those days Catherine, daughter of Giacomo the fuller, filled all the city of Sienna with the perfume of her virtues. She dwelt in a little cell in her father's house and wore the habit of the Sisters of Penitence.
The sun, rising above the Apennines, was just whitening the prison walls with its earliest rays. Catherine said: "Look, the dawn! Up, up, my brother, for the eternal nuptials! Up, I say!" And raising him from the ground, she drew him into the Chapel, where Fra Cattaneo confessed him. Ser Niccola Tuldo then listened devoutly to the holy Mass and received the body of Our Lord.
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