by Stendhal
Prince Orsini, informed of all this, resolved not to go to Venice at all. He was already in the neighborhood of Padua, so he made a detour into this admirable region and soon came to the house prepared for him in Salo, on the banks of Lake Garda. He spent the entire summer there amid the most agreeable and the most varied pastimes.
The time for changing residences having arrived, the prince made a few brief trips, after which he seemed more fatigued than usual; there were concerns for his health. At last he decided to spend a few days in Venice, but his wife, Vittoria, talked him into changing his mind and staying on at Salo.
Some people have believed that Vittoria Accoramboni knew of the peril that daily threatened her husband, and that the only reason she had them stay on at Salo was as part of a plan to move on soon out of Italy entirely, to go, for example, to some free city among the Swiss; this would ensure that, in case of her husband’s death, she and her fortune would be safe.
Whether this conjecture was well founded or not, the fact is that nothing of the kind happened, for the prince fell ill from a new malady in Salo, on the tenth of November; he had a premonition at once of what was going to happen.
He felt pity for his unfortunate wife; he could see her, in the finest flower of her youth, left impoverished, bereft of both her reputation and her fortune, hated by the reigning princes of Italy, not much loved even by the Orsini, and without any hope of another marriage after his death. Like a magnanimous lord, true to his word, he made of his own accord a will that he hoped would assure the fortune of the illfated woman. He left her, in money and in jewels, the great sum of 100,000 piastres,10 as well as all the horses, coaches, and furnishings used in their travels. All the rest of his fortune he left to Virginio Orsini, his only son, born of his first wife, the sister of François I, Grand Duke of Tuscany (the woman he had had killed for her infidelity, with the consent of her brothers).
But how ill-founded are all the plans of humankind! The very dispositions that Paolo Orsini thought would assure perfect security for his doomed young wife turned out to be precipices leading to her ruin.
After having signed his will, the prince felt a little better on the twelfth of November. On the morning of the thirteenth, he was bled, and the doctors, whose only hope lay in a strict diet, left the most precise orders forbidding him to eat anything else.
But they had scarcely left the chamber when the prince demanded to be served dinner; no one dared contradict him, and he ate and drank as he normally would. The meal was barely over when he lost consciousness, and two hours before sundown he was dead.
After this sudden death, Vittoria Accoramboni, accompanied by Marcel, her brother, and all the entourage of the deceased prince, returned to Padua, to the Foscarini palazzo situated on the Arena, the same palazzo that Prince Orsini had rented.
Shortly after their arrival, she was joined by her brother Flaminio, who was in great favor with Cardinal Farnese. She busied herself with all the details needed to obtain the payment of the legacy left her by her husband; the legacy came to 60,000 piastres, payable to her over a two-year period, and that was besides the dowry, the counter-dowry, and all the jewels and furnishings that had been in her possession. Prince Orsini had decreed, in his will, that either in Rome or some other city to be chosen by the duchess, a palazzo would be purchased for her in the price range of 10,000 piastres; and a vineyard (if it were in the country), of 6,000. He further ordained that her table and all her service should be fitting for a woman of her rank. The service was to consist of forty domestics, with an appropriate number of horses.
Signora Vittoria had a great deal of hope in the goodwill of the princes of Ferrara, Florence, and Urbino, and in that of the cardinals Farnese and de Medici, named as executors of the will by her husband. It should be noted that the will had been made in Padua and submitted to the wise judgment of the excellent Parrisolo and Meno-chio, both leading professors at that university and still today celebrated legal scholars.
Prince Louis Orsini arrived at Padua to attend to what needed to be done relative to the deceased duke and his widow, and to betake himself afterward to the island of Corfu, where he had been appointed by the Serene Republic.
There arose, first, a difficulty between Signora Vittoria and Prince Louis concerning the horses of the deceased duke, which the prince maintained were not technically furnishings, in the ordinary sense of that word; but the duchess argued that they should be considered as such, and it was agreed that she would keep the use of them until an ultimate decision was reached; she named as a surety Signor Soardi de Bergamo, condottiere to the Venetian signori, a wealthy man and one of the premier citizens of his country.
Then another difficulty arose, on the subject of a certain silver vessel that the deceased duke had given to Prince Louis as a pledge for a sum of money that he had loaned the duke. Everything was decided by the courts, for His Serenity (the Duke) of Ferrara saw to it that the last wishes of Prince Orsini were followed to the letter.
This second affair was settled on the twenty-third of December, which was a Sunday.
The following night, forty men burst into the house of the aforesaid Lady Accoramboni. They were dressed in strange clothes, worn in such a way that they could not be recognized, not even by their voices, for when they spoke, they called each other by false names.
They first sought out the duchess herself, and when they located her, one of them announced: “Now, it is time to die.”
And without giving her even a moment, and even as she was calling out to God, he stabbed her beneath the left breast, and, twisting the knife in every direction, the cruel villain asked her several times if he had yet reached her heart; finally, she breathed her last. Meanwhile, the others were seeking out the brothers of the duchess, one of whom, Marcel, had his life saved by virtue of not having been in the house; the other was stabbed a hundred times. The murderers left the bodies lying on the ground while the entire household was crying out and weeping; and when they had got hold of the strongbox containing the jewels and the money, they left.
The news came rapidly to the magistrates of Padua; they saw to it that the bodies were identified, and sent a report to Venice.
All through the day Monday, a huge crowd gathered outside the palazzo and outside the Church of the Eremitani to view the corpses. The curious were moved by pity, particularly to see the duchess so beautiful: they wept for her misfortune, et dentibus fremebant (and ground their teeth) against the assassins; but no one knew what their names might be.
The corte having developed the suspicion, based on very strong clues, that the thing had been done on the orders of, or at least with the consent of, the above-named Prince Louis, he was called before them; and he, wishing to enter in corte (into the tribunal) of the most illustrious captain with a suite of forty armed men, found the door barred to him, and they told him he could enter with only three or four. But as soon as the three or four entered, the others rushed in behind them, overwhelming the guards, and they entered as a body.
Prince Louis came before the most illustrious captain complaining of the affront done to him and insisting that no sovereign prince had ever been treated in such a way. When the most illustrious captain asked him if he knew anything about the death of Signora Vittoria and of what had happened on the preceding night, he replied that yes, he did, and that he had ordered a report to be made to the authorities. They wanted to take down his testimony in writing; he replied that men of his rank were not bound by any such formality and that, likewise, they were not to be interrogated.
Prince Louis asked permission to send a courier to Florence with a letter for Prince Virginio Orsini, to whom he was submitting his report about the proceedings and the crime that had taken place. He displayed a false letter, not the real one, and his request was granted.
But the courier was stopped outside the city and carefully searched; the letter that Prince Louis had sent was found, and a second one was found hidden in the courier’s boot; its tenor was
as follows:
To His Lordship Virginio Orsini
Most Illustrious Lord,
We have carried out what we planned together, and in such a way that we have duped the most illustrious Tondini (this was apparently the name of the chief of the corte that had interrogated the prince) so completely that they take me here for the finest gentleman in the world. I took care of the thing personally, so do not fail to send the people we agreed upon immediately.
This letter made an impression on the magistrates; they hurried to have it sent to Venice; by their order, the gates of the city were closed, and soldiers were set to guard the walls day and night. They proclaimed an order threatening the most severe punishment for anyone who knew anything about the assassins and failed to communicate what they knew to the authorities. Any of the murderers who gave testimony against the others were not to be prosecuted; in fact, they would receive a monetary reward. But toward the seventh hour of the night on Christmas Eve (that is, around midnight on the twenty-fourth of December), Aloïse Bragadin arrived from Venice, empowered by the senate to arrest, dead or alive, no matter what the cost, the aforesaid prince and his people.
The aforesaid Signor Bragadin and the captain and chief magistrate all met in the fortress.
A decree went out for all militiamen, whether foot soldiers or cavalry, under pain of facing the gallows (della forca), to muster fully armed and surround the house of the aforesaid Prince Louis, which was next to the fortress, and adjoining the Church of Saint Augustine on the Arena.
The day dawned—Christmas Day—and another edict was published exhorting the sons of Saint Mark11 to arm themselves and hurry to the house of Prince Louis; those without arms were to come to the fortress, where they would be furnished with what they needed. This edict promised a reward of 2,000 ducats to anyone who would bring the aforesaid Prince Louis, dead or alive, to the corte, and one of 500 ducats for any of his men. Moreover, anyone who did not have arms was not to approach the house of the prince, so as not to be in the way of those in the fight, in case the prince decided to hazard an attack.
At the same time, cannons, mortars, and other large artillery were arrayed on the old walls and aimed at the house occupied by the prince; there were also a number of them set up on the new walls, from which the back of the house could be observed. On this side, the cavalry were stationed, where they could move most freely were they needed. Along the riverside, people were busy piling benches, armoires, carts, and other such things to form parapets. The plan was that this would be an obstacle to the besieged in case they tried to form a wedge and break through the assembled people. These parapets would also serve to protect the artillery men and the soldiers against the harquebus fire from the besieged.
Finally, boats were stationed on the river facing all sides of the prince’s house, filled with men armed with muskets and other arms to harass the enemy if he tried to break out; and at the same time barricades were set up in every street.
During these preparations, a letter arrived, written in the most suitably dignified terms, in which the prince complained of having been found guilty and seeing himself be treated like an enemy, even a rebel, before there had even been a proper inq uest. This letter had been written by Liveroto.
On December 27, the town’s three leading gentlemen were sent by the magistrate to Prince Louis, who had with him in his house forty men, all seasoned men-at-arms. They were found busily fortifying parapets with boards and mattresses soaked in water, and readying their harquebuses.
These three gentlemen declared to the prince that the magistrates were determined to arrest him; they exhorted him to give himself up, adding that if he did so before any actual fighting began, he could expect to be treated mercifully. To this Prince Louis replied that if first the guards posted around his house were withdrawn, he would come to the magistrates accompanied by two or three of his men to discuss the matter, on the condition that he would be free at any time to return to his house.
The ambassadors took these propositions, written in his own hand, and returned to the magistrates, who refused the conditions, especially after hearing the counsel of the most illustrious Pio Enea and other nobles present. The ambassadors returned to the prince, telling him that if he did not surrender himself purely and simply, his house would be demolished by the artillery; to which he replied that he would rather die than undergo such an act of submission.
The magistrates gave the battle signal, but, although it would have been easy to destroy the house with a single concentrated volley, they preferred to proceed more carefully in order to see if the besieged could be induced to surrender.
This plan was successful, and Saint Mark was saved a great deal of expense that would have been required to rebuild what the bombardment of the palazzo would have destroyed; but it was not generally approved of. If Prince Louis’s men had acted quickly and rushed together out of the house, the outcome would have been quite uncertain. These were experienced veterans, lacking neither munitions nor arms nor courage, and above all they had a vested interest in not losing: Would it not be better to die by a bullet from a harquebus than at the hands of the executioner? And anyway, who were they dealing with? A lot of inexperienced besiegers who scarcely knew their own weapons; in that case, the magistrates might have had reason to repent of their clemency and goodwill.
Thus, they began by bombarding the colonnade that ran along the front of the house; then, aiming a little higher each time, they de stroyed the facade just behind it. Meanwhile, the men inside furiously fired their harquebuses, but with no effect beyond wounding one local man in the shoulder.
Prince Louis cried out impetuously, “To battle! To battle! War! War!” He was busily casting bullets from his pewter tableware and the lead from the windows. He threatened to mount an attack, but the besiegers now shifted their tactics and brought up heavier artillery.
At the first blow, it brought down a large section of the house, and a certain Pandolfo Leupratti de Camerino fell into the ruins. This was a man of great courage and a bandit of considerable importance. He had been banished from the Papal States, and his head had a reward of 400 piastres put upon it by the most illustrious Signor Vitelli, in revenge for the killing of Vincent Vitelli, who had been attacked within his coach and killed with both harquebus bullets and poniard thrusts, a death ordered by Prince Louis Orsini and carried out by the aforesaid Pandolfo and his companions. Stunned by his fall, Pandolfo could not move at all; a servant of the lords of Caidi Lista advanced upon him, armed with a pistol, and very courageously cut off his head, which he then hurried to carry back to the magistrates at the fortress.
Soon after this, another shot from the artillery brought down another section of the house and along with it the Count de Montemelino de Perouse, who died there in the ruins, his body shattered by the cannonball.
Then they saw a person named Colonel Lorenzo, from the nobles of Camerino, come out of the house and give proofs of that valor which had been so highly valued by the prince. He resolved not to die without vengeance, and he tried to take up his gun, but as it happened, and by the grace of God, the harquebus jammed, and in that very instant he was cut in half by a cannonball. The shot had been fired by a poor devil, a tutor at the boys’ school at Saint-Michel. And when the man approached to take the dead man’s head as proof he could offer in claiming his reward, he was overtaken by some others more nimble and stronger than him; they made off with the colonel’s purse, his belt, his gun, his money, and his rings, and they even got his head.
These two having been killed, the ones in whom Prince Louis had placed so much of his confidence, he was greatly troubled, and now he made no other movements.
Signor Filenfi, the master of his casa and his secretary, clad in nonmilitary attire, signaled with a white handkerchief from a balcony. He came out and was led off to the fortress, “under conduct of arms,” as they say during wartime, by Anselme Suardo, lieutenant of the magistrates.
Interrogated at once, he said
he bore no blame for what had happened, because he had arrived from Venice only on Christmas Eve, having been away several days on the prince’s business.
He was asked how many men the prince had with him; he replied, “Twenty or thirty persons.”
He was asked for their names, and he said that there were only some eight or ten persons of quality who ate with the prince, as he himself did, and that these were the only ones whose names he knew, but the others—vagabonds who had only recently come to the prince’s side—of them he knew nothing.
He named thirteen persons, including the brother of Liveroto.
Soon after this, the artillery placed on the city walls began blasting. Soldiers stationed themselves in the neighboring houses to catch those who fled. The said prince, who had taken the same risks as the two whose deaths we have recounted, said to those near him that they should hold out until he provided them a written order accompanied by a certain sign; after this, he went and surrendered to that Anselme Suardo who was named above. And given that he could not be taken away in a coach, which had been forbidden because of the great crowds of people and the barricades that had been set up on the streets, it was decided to take him away on foot.
He walked surrounded by the men of Marcel Accoramboni; at his sides were officers of the condottieri, Lieutenant Suardo, and other captains and gentlemen of the town. Behind them were a large company of men-at-arms and soldiers of the town. Prince Louis was clad in brown, his stiletto at his side and his cloak carried under his arm in a most elegant manner, muttering disdainfully, “If I had actually fought!” By which he meant that he would have carried the day. Brought before the magistrates, he greeted them and said:
