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A red face, but of a livid, purplish red suffused all over the heavy furrowed forehead to where it met the white wig, all over the flabby cheeks, hanging in big loose folds upon the short, loose-folded red neck; massive features, but coarsened and drawn; and dull, thick, silent-looking lips, of purplish red scarce redder than the red skin; pale blue eyes tending to a watery greyness, leaden, vague, sad, but with angry streakings of red; something inexpressibly sad, gloomy, helpless, vacant and debased in the whole face: such was the man who awaited Louise of Stolberg in the Compagnoni-Marefoschi palace at Macerata, and who, on Good Friday the 17th of April 1772, wedded her in the palace chapel and signed his name in the register as Charles III., King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland.
Of that transaction I shall give a particular account, as it will show in a very strong light the nature and proceedings of that horrid court. The person whom the Inquisitor appointed me to apprehend was Count Vicenzo della Torre, descended from an illustrious family in Germany, and possessed of a very considerable estate in the territory of Macerata.
At Macerata, one of the larger towns of the March of Ancona, she was awaited by her bridegroom. A noble family of the province, the Compagnoni-Marefoschis, one of whom, a cardinal, was an old friend of the Stuarts, had placed their palace at the disposal of the royal pair.
Before taking complete possession of Rome, and making it the second city of the Empire, the vaunted moderation of Bonaparte was confined to dismembering from it the legations of Ancona, Urbino, Macerata, and Camerino, which were divided into three departments; and added to the Kingdom of Italy.
He was one of my very particular friends, and had lately married the daughter of Signior Constantini, of Fermo, a lady no less famous for her good sense than her beauty. With her family too, I had contracted an intimate acquaintance, while Professor of Rhetoric in Fermo, and had often attended the Count during his courtship, from Macerata to Fermo, but fifteen miles distant.
The third day was entirely employed in examining the exterior of this truly wonderful sanctuary, and early the next day I resumed my journey, having spent nothing except three paoli for the barber. Halfway to Macerata, I overtook Brother Stephano walking on at a very slow rate.
These were precisely the three young men, of all others in Macerata, whom it was most for the interest of the Papacy to get rid of. That very day these three young men were apprehended.
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