“The new archbishop was sent out, attended by a train of priests, to Egypt. When the ship arrived, a communication was made to the authorities in Egypt, who repudiated the archbishop and declared the affair was an imposition. His Grace then confessing the fraud, was instantly arrested and reconducted to Rome. He had been the author of the letter which imposed on the pope; his original intention having been to confess to the pope as a priest, after his consecration, the imposition he had practised; and as the pope could not betray a secret imparted to him in the confessional, the offender might have obtained absolution in time and so escaped punishment. Whether this would have been practicable, I know not; but as it was not accomplished, and as the youth had the rank of archbishop indelibly imprinted on him, nothing remained but to confine His Grace for the remainder of his life; and accordingly he was at once consigned to this prison near the Vatican, where he has now spent twenty-five summers; and occasionally the Archbishop of Memphis may be seen putting his head out of the windows to breathe the fresh air of heaven and gaze upon the Vatican from a prison whence he never can escape.”[4]

The latest account of the old Inquisition is from an eye witness the Father Gavazzi who made some noise in his time as a fugitive priest and who visited the place in 1852. He wrote the following description:

“I found no instruments of torture, for they were destroyed at the first French invasion and because such instruments were not used afterwards by the modern Inquisition. I did, however, find in one of the prisons of the second court a furnace and the remains of a woman’s dress. I shall never be able to believe that that furnace was used for the living, it not being in such a place, or of such a kind as to be of service to them. Everything, on the contrary, combines to persuade me that it was made use of for horrible deaths and to consume the remains of victims of inquisitorial executions. Another object of horror I found between the great hall of judgment and the luxurious apartment of the chief jailer, or primo custode, the Dominican friar who presided over this diabolical establishment. This was a deep trap, a shaft opening into the vaults under the Inquisition. As soon as the so-called criminal had confessed his offence, the second keeper, who is always a Dominican friar, sent him to the father commissary to receive a relaxation of his punishment. In the hope of pardon, the confessed culprit would go toward the apartment of the Holy Inquisitor; but in the act of setting foot at its entrance, the trap opened and the world of the living heard no more of him. I examined some of the earth found in the pit below this trap; it was a compost of common earth, rottenness, ashes and human hair, fetid to the smell and horrible to the sight and thought of the beholder.

“Next you descend into the vaults by very narrow stairs. A narrow corridor leads you to the several cells which for smallness and for stench are a hundred times more horrible than the dens of lions and tigers in the Colosseum. Wandering in this labyrinth of most fearful prisons, which may be called ‘graves for the living,’ I came to a cell full of skeletons without skulls, buried in lime. The skulls detached from the bodies had been collected in a hamper by the first visitors. Whose were those skeletons? And why were they buried in that place and in that manner? I have heard some zealous ecclesiastics, trying to defend the Inquisition from the charge of having condemned its victims to a secret death, say that the palace of the Inquisition was built on a burial ground belonging anciently to a hospital for pilgrims, and that the skeletons found were none other than those of pilgrims who had died in that hospital. But everything contradicts this specious defence. Suppose that there had been a cemetery there; it could not have had subterranean galleries and cells laid out with so great regularity; and even if there had been such—against all probability—the remains of bodies would have been removed on laying the foundations of the palace, to leave the space free for the subterranean part of the Inquisition. Besides, it is contrary to the use of common tombs to bury the dead by carrying them through a door at the side; for the mouth of the sepulchre is always at the top. And again it has never been the custom in Italy to bury the dead, singly, in quicklime; but in time of plague, the dead bodies have been usually laid in a grave until it was sufficiently full, and then quicklime has been laid over them to prevent pestilential exhalations, by hastening the decomposition of the infected corpses. This custom was continued some years ago in the cemeteries of Naples and especially in the daily burial of the poor. Therefore the skeletons found in the Inquisition of Rome could not belong to persons who had died a natural death in a hospital; nor could any one under such a supposition explain the mystery of all the bodies being buried in lime, with exception of the head. It remains then beyond doubt that the subterranean vault contained the victims of one of the many secret martyrdoms of the tribunal. The following is a most probable opinion, if it be not rather the history of a fact:

“The condemned were immersed in a bath of slaked lime gradually filled up to their necks. The lime, by little and little, enclosed the sufferers, or walled them up alive. The torment was thus extreme but slow. As the lime rose higher and higher the respiration of the victims became more and more painful, because more difficult; so that what with the suffocation of the smoke and the anguish of a compressed breathing, they died in a manner most horrible and desperate. Some time after their death, the heads would naturally separate from the bodies and roll away into the hollows left by the shrinking of the lime. Any other explanation of the fact that may be attempted will be found improbable and unnatural.”

CHAPTER VIII

LATER DAYS IN ROME

Under the later popes and in spite of many repressive edicts, crime prevailed largely in Rome. Immorality of life was a prominent vice in all classes, especially the highest. Gambling was indulged to such an extent that entire fortunes were staked upon a turn of the cards and a throw of dice. Indeed, several members of the aristocracy only saved themselves from utter ruin by obtaining a kind of lettre de cachet from the pope which kept their creditors at bay, or by the strictness of the laws of primogeniture, or by deeds of trust which enabled them to save something from the general wreck. To such a height was the passion for gambling carried, that special edicts were issued in 1757, 1790 and 1799, forbidding all games of “Azzardo, Invito and Resto” under the penalty of a fine of five hundred scudi, five years at the galleys and the forfeiture of all the winnings. Nor was this severity unnecessary. Every one from the highest to the lowest played the favourite games, “Bassetta,” “Faraone,” “Zecchinetta,” “Caffo,” “Trentuquaranta,” “Bancofallito,” “Macao” and “Ventuno,” and it was no uncommon thing to see a table covered with heaps of gold and notes, much of which could ill be spared.

The most stringent regulations, rigidly enforced, could not check crime. When a papal conclave was sitting, much time was wasted before the new election could be made, and it was then that anarchy and confusion reigned and the gravest crimes were committed with impunity by all classes. Thus the Abbé Ceracchi murdered his brother and was afterwards hanged; the Abbé Anguilla, a high official of the papal court, committed an atrocious murder and the prince, Sigismund Chigi, administered slow poison to Cardinal Carandini who escaped almost by a miracle. As the centuries passed, misdeeds multiplied and with them the infliction of the extreme penalty of the law. Immediately before the Napoleonic era, the scaffold was constantly in use and many culprits were hanged, drawn and quartered. While the French were supreme, milder methods prevailed, but when the papal authorities again came into power, a reactionary movement set in and capital punishment was again the rule.

Pope Leo XII was a ferocious ruler who loved the sight of blood and who approved of cruel punishments, such as the flogging of Guiseppe Franconi, who was convicted of having assassinated Monsignor Traietto, and was beheaded while stoutly protesting his innocence. During this pontificate “no less than 339 persons, many of them condemned for what we should now term trivial offences, were executed.” In these days the carnival produced the greatest disorders. The police were utterly powerless to restrain the excesses of the people. Their lawlessness was, of course, stimulated by the example of the nobles who defied all regulations, although these were often of a severe and summary kind.

The ceremony of the presentation of the Chinea, when the white palfrey, richly caparisoned, carrying the tribute of the king of Naples to the pope, proceeded in state from the Colonna Palace to the Vatican, was always the occasion of disturbance. The streets were crowded to see it pass and the people gave themselves up to wild roistering. They passed the time in quarrelling, drinking, gambling, fighting, and were in open conflict with the bargello and his myrmidons of the police. The following morning all these disturbers of the public peace, who had been taken red handed, were flogged by the public executioner, or exposed in the pillory.

Some extracts from the decrees published by the governor of Rome will show that the clerical authorities were anxious that the people should be virtuous and well-behaved. The whole question of public demeanour was dealt with in a section of the criminal code prescribing the penalties for “trying to stir up sedition and disorder,” as follows:

“His Eminence ordains that any one of whatsoever station, who shall break the peace, or cause it to be broken, or who shall endeavour to stir up strife, by word or deed, shall be liable to morte naturale, the ruin and demolition of his house, and the confiscation of all his goods; and if he will not submit himself to the jurisdiction of the Court, he shall be condemned, as contumacious, to all the aforesaid penalties, and a picture shall be hung up of him in his ordinary dress in some public place, representing him as suspended heels uppermost, and with his name, surname, residence and the nature of his crime written underneath.”

Another law, aimed at the maintenance of good order in the city, by peremptorily forbidding the carrying of offensive weapons, ran as follows:

“No person shall be permitted to carry any arms, whether offensive or defensive, without permission under pain of the following punishment: the loss of the arms, three lashes and a fine of twenty-five scudi, if the offence has been by day—the fine to be double if at night. And under the name of arms are included all bludgeons and small sacks and night sticks and large stones. His Eminence also prohibits any one from taking into, or keeping in a house, or elsewhere, and from selling, making or repairing of pistols, under pain of death, confiscation of goods and other penalties, as laid down in the bulls of Pius IV and Pius V; and if, in making search, the officers of justice shall find any prohibited arms, of whatsoever kind, laid on the ground at less than six paces from any person, the said arms shall be presumed to belong to that person, and such presumption shall suffice to subject that person to the torture.”

The discipline of the nunneries was necessarily strict. Yet it was at times defied and crimes were committed that throw a baleful light upon the general condition of these retreats, generally deemed decorous and holy. In 1633, a nun of noble family, an inmate of the convent of St. Domenico, on Monte Magnanapoli, was foully murdered by a lay sister of the same house; and two other nuns, who ran to her assistance on hearing her cries, were badly wounded by the assassin. The lay sister, by order of the pope, was strangled in the convent and confessed before her death that she had done the deed at the instigation of another nun, a member of the Aldobrandini family, and a niece of Pope Clement VIII. This lady was quietly put out of the way.

Again, a young nobleman of Ferrara fell in love with a nun of the convent of Santa Croce. He corresponded with her for some time, and finally planned with a servant to introduce him into the nunnery concealed in a box. But through some mistake the servant did not realise that any one was as yet inside, and delayed the delivery of the box. When at length it reached the nun, who alone had the key, and she opened it, the man was found to be all but suffocated. The unhappy girl in her terror and perplexity revealed the whole affair to the lady abbess, who reported it to the vicar, who in his turn told the pope. Whereupon the poor nun, a beautiful girl of eighteen years, was arraigned for her offence and sentenced to be walled up alive in the basement of the nunnery.

A later law imposed severe penalties punishing the violation of nunneries. It reads:

“And because all sacred places—but, above all, nunneries—deserve every respect, His Eminence orders and desires that if any one in any way whatsoever seeks to enter a nunnery without official permission, whether by night or day, he shall incur the penalty of death; even if he have not committed any special fault. And all who have in any way aided or abetted him shall incur the like penalty.”

And another law was very severe upon the crime of blasphemy, as follows:

“Although it should be so repugnant to the nature of man to offend God Almighty by blaspheming either the Person of His own Divine Majesty, or that of His Saints, as to make it utterly unnecessary to provide human laws against the sin, yet, as His Eminence desires to correct the natural depravity of the human heart, it is hereby ordained that—if any one shall blaspheme, curse or in any way lightly name the most Holy Name of God, or of his only begotten Son, our Redeemer, or of the Most Holy Mother, always a virgin, or of any saint whatsoever, etc., etc.—he shall, for the first offence, incur a penalty of three lashes, given in public; for the second, a public flogging; and for the third, the galleys for five years. And the evidence of one reliable witness shall suffice in addition to that of the accuser, at the pleasure of the judge.”

Another mandate of high moral tendency states: “Whoever shall violently assault and kiss, or try to kiss, a virtuous woman, in public—even though he should not actually succeed in kissing her, but should only proceed so far as an embrace—shall be condemned to the galleys for life; shall have his possessions confiscated; and shall even be liable to the penalty of death at the option of His Eminence.”

The honesty of the purveyors of food was closely watched by the bishop-governor in a law which reads:

“I will that any bakers or other tradesmen who do not sell well-made bread of good weight shall incur a penalty of three lashes and a fine of ten scudi each; one-half of the fine to be applied to pious uses and the other half to go to the accuser, or the executioner, or in other ways, at the pleasure of the judge.”

A most interesting account is given of the passage through Rome, at the latter end of the eighteenth century, of that remarkable personage and most famous adventurer Giuseppe Balsamo. It was in Rome that this famous swindler was finally unmasked, his frauds exposed and he himself seized, tried and condemned to death. His story drawn from authentic records is worth telling in some detail.

This famous impostor was commonly called Count Cagliostro. Carlyle says of him that he “was not so much a liar as a lie.” He was born at Palermo on the 8th June, 1743, being the son of Pietro Balsamo, a merchant, and Felice Braconieri, his wife. Young Giuseppe was sent as a lad to the seminary of San Rocco in Palermo, and during his stay there he ran away several times from school. When he was thirteen years old he was consigned to the care of the father-general of the Benfratelli, who himself took him to Cartagirone, where he entered on his novitiate and among other things studied alchemy and a little medicine. While in the convent he was repeatedly flogged for misconduct. Among the other sins he committed there, it is specially recorded that when it came to his turn to read the “Martyrology” at meal times, he would substitute the names of famous murderers for those of saints and virgins. He was invariably the ringleader in any disturbance and such was his impudent boldness that he often helped to rescue prisoners from the custody of the police. About this time he also began to study Latin and drawing, and his skill in imitation was so great that he frequently forged tickets for the theatre. When he quitted the convent he went to live with an uncle from whom he stole considerable sums of money. He also managed to ingratiate himself with one of his cousins who was in love with a rich gentleman of Palermo, and carried letters between them; and representing to her admirer that the young lady would be gratified by a gift of money and jewels, he obtained possession of both which he quietly appropriated.

The next offence of Balsamo was the forging of a will, and before the fraud was discovered he was far away from Palermo. He was always believed to have murdered a canon, although the authorities failed to obtain actual proof of his guilt, but he was imprisoned several times for robberies and assaults.

Finally he stole more than sixty ounces of gold from one Marano, a goldsmith, whom he had deluded into the belief that he could show him where a vast hidden treasure lay concealed. Marano, who had not only been robbed but also nearly beaten to death by certain devils invoked by Balsamo, determined to take revenge for all his injuries. This obliged Balsamo to fly from Palermo, and he left the city under a strong suspicion that he had either committed or attempted to commit sacrilege. Then began his many wanderings. At Messina, one of his first halting places, he met with a certain Althotas, who was a Greek, and from him he acquired a considerable knowledge of chemistry and of Oriental languages. He travelled with this man all over the Greek Archipelago and as far as Egypt, where his companion made silk from hemp.

From Egypt Balsamo journeyed to Rhodes and Malta, where he stayed with Pinto, grand-master of the Order of St. John. He then proceeded to Naples in company with a coral cutter to whom he had been recommended by the grand-master. He lived in Naples for a considerable time and while there made the acquaintance of Prince Pignatelli who afterwards accompanied him into Sicily. On the way he met a priest at Messina who had been one of the devils who helped in the attack on Marano, and later he returned to Naples, where he remained a short time.

And thus it happened that one fine day in the year 1773 he presented himself in Rome, after having travelled through Italy, Greece, Egypt, Arabia and Persia. He was only thirty years old as yet, but his was a larger and more varied experience than most men acquire during their entire lives. And now he was prepared to try his old tricks in a new place and on a grander scale. He established himself in Rome at the “Locanda del Sole” and by means of the letters of introduction he brought with him soon became acquainted with several great personages, including the Baron de Breteuil, ambassador of the Knights of Malta.

He had not been long in the city before he attached himself to a young girl of the name of Serafina, otherwise Lorenza Feliciani, who lived near the Trinità di Monti. She was born at Monte Rinaldo in the diocese of Fermo, but her father’s crimes had driven him from his native place and forced him to seek refuge in Rome. One of her brothers was in the army, and at a later date was present at the siege of Ancona with General Cubiers. Lorenza’s father was called Luca Andrea, but he changed his name after he came to Rome. When Cagliostro asked for his daughter in marriage he gave his consent at once, and the wedding took place on the 26th of February. Cagliostro immediately applied himself to the task of undermining his wife’s virtue, silencing her scruples by saying “that adultery was no sin in a woman who was actuated simply by motives of self-interest,” and by thus selling his honour he succeeded in raising a small sum of money. By and by he made the acquaintance of a certain Ottavio Nicastro, a Sicilian who called himself the Marchese Agliata and who afterward died on the scaffold for premeditated murder. This man falsified an official brevet of the king of Prussia in favour of his friend, representing Balsamo as having been the colonel of one of the Prussian regiments of which he wore the uniform.

But “rogues fall out when honest men agree,” and these two were no exception to the rule. Nicastro suddenly denounced Balsamo to the governor of Rome as a forger, and the latter had to seek safety in flight. Nicastro, however, seemed immediately to repent of what he had done, and accompanied Balsamo in his hurried departure. The precious pair then visited Loreto, Bologna, Bergamo and Genoa, in all of which places they carried on their usual nefarious practices, among other evil deeds forging a bill for twenty-five scudi payable in Savoy. At Genoa Agliata absconded with everything he could lay hands on, and Balsamo took his wife to Nice and thence to Spain, giving out that he was going on a pious pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostello.

He remained six months in Barcelona and there continued his usual mode of life. His wife Lorenza was young, of medium height and fair complexion, with a round face, beautiful eyes and a sweet and languishing expression which proved very attractive. She was a most valuable assistant to him in many ways and he had no scruple, as we have said, in availing himself of her services. From Barcelona he journeyed to Madrid, then on to Lisbon and through France to London. In 1780 he was at Strasburg, where the credulous Germans treated him as a supernatural being, and after visiting many other towns in Germany, he appeared once more in Palermo and Naples, representing himself in every city where he stopped as a famous alchemist and magician who could invoke spirits, revive vanished youth and strength and foretell future events. He also professed to have discovered the secret of the philosopher’s stone and to hold the recipe of the much coveted elixir of life, to sell strange aromatic wines which excited the jaded senses, and finally, to be able to turn mercury into gold and to make precious stones increase in size.

It was during the time of his residence in London that his fame became world-wide. One of his first acts there was to enroll himself among the Freemasons, and he very speedily attained to the highest rank in the order. Then he abandoned his paternal name of Balsamo and blossomed out as Alessandro, Count of Cagliostro, a nobleman of vast wealth which he displayed travelling in the greatest pomp and state and surrounded by many servants in splendid liveries. He also gave himself out to be immortal and of an age not to be computed by years, for he possessed the secret of perpetual youth.

He kept up this farce for two years in England and then ventured to return to Palermo, where his ancient enemy, Marano, at once caused him to be arrested, and proceedings were taken against him on account of the will he had previously forged. It seems almost incredible, but it is a fact that he was released from prison owing to the intervention of a powerful aristocrat who lived in Naples and to whom he had letters of introduction.

His fame as a professor of the occult arts spread faster than the knowledge of his evil deeds. Wherever he went he was received with rapturous enthusiasm. At Mittau in Germany the people were so frantic about him that they seriously entertained the idea of deposing their rightful sovereign and making Cagliostro their ruler. In Paris, however, the rascal received somewhat of a check, for he was proved to be the prime instigator in the affair of the famous diamond necklace, in which both Cardinal Rohan and the Countess de la Motte-Valois were implicated. He was at first imprisoned in the Bastile and afterward expelled from the country on twenty-four hours’ notice. Yet such was the faith of the people in this strange creature that the arbitrary decision of the authorities almost produced an uprising in his favour, and his departure from France was more in the nature of a triumph than a disgrace.

He went from Paris to London, and there on the 20th June, 1786, he issued a kind of manifesto to the French people in which he used these remarkable words:—“The time is coming when the Bastile will be destroyed; when a prince shall reign who will abolish ‘lettres de cachet,’ convoke the States-General and reform religion;” all of which afterward came to pass. But his stay in London was short. One de Morande, editor of the Courrier de L’Europe, denounced him as a charlatan and he had to make a hasty departure for Basle. He was next heard of in Savoy, then in Vienna—whence he was expelled by order of Joseph II—and later in Trent, where he was welcomed by the prince archbishop until the emperor’s orders arrived to drive him out, after which he returned again to Rome.

Cagliostro reached Rome for the last time in May, 1789, and after staying for a short time at the Locanda della Scalinata in the Piazza di Spagna he took a private house in the Piazza Farnese. It was just at the time when so-called “Egyptian Masonry” was being introduced into Rome, and a large and powerful lodge was established at the Villa Malta, near the Porta Pinciana, where meetings were held which were almost public gatherings. An account of one of these meetings which was attended by the Abbé Benedetti, a Roman litterateur, is given in his own words.

“I have just been to a meeting presided over by Cagliostro at the Villa Malta near the Porta Pinciana. It was the Marchese M. P. who insisted upon my going and who accompanied me thither. We went about two o’clock in the evening (nine o’clock according to English time) and entered the precincts of the villa after giving the countersign to the servant in livery who answered our ring. We were then introduced into a large, brightly lighted saloon, whose walls were painted with representations of the square, level, plumb lines and other masonic emblems. There were besides a number of statuettes of Egyptian, Assyrian and Chinese idols and one of the walls had on it in large letters the mottoes:—

“The apartment was full of distinguished persons. You can imagine my astonishment when I recognised His Eminence Cardinal Bernis, ambassador of the most Christian King (of France), Prince Frederick Cesi (junior), the Abbé Ennio Quirino Viconti, Signor di Breteuil, and many other great lords and ladies, among the latter of whom I noticed the Princess Rezzonico, the Princess Santa Croce, the Countess Soderini, and Marchese Massini, attended by a capuchin. At the end of the room there was a kind of altar on which were placed skulls, stuffed monkeys, living serpents, owls whose eyes blinked in the unaccustomed light, old musty parchments, crucibles, amulets, packets of strange powders and similar diabolical articles. In a little while Alessandro Cagliostro made his appearance. He is a man of middle stature, stoutly built, with a stern and yet malicious expression of countenance and a suspicious look in his eyes; in every respect like the portrait I have of him. His wife followed him into the room. She also is very like her picture and is a handsome looking woman, well proportioned and with a very vivacious face.

“Cagliostro at once seated himself upon a three-legged stool and began to speak somewhat in this fashion: ‘It is right that I should tell you about my life, that I should reveal my past to you, that I should tear down the thick veil which impedes your sight. Enter then and hear. Behold the desert annihilated, the gigantic palms projecting their shadow upon the sand; the Nile flowing tranquilly, the sphinxes, obelisks and huge columns rising all around. Behold the marvellous walls of the temples in all their grandeur, the mighty pyramids which rear themselves towards the sky, the labyrinths none can penetrate. It is the sacred city, it is Memphis. Behold King Thothmes III, the glorious, enter it in triumph after having vanquished the Syrians and Canaanites. I see. But lo! I stand in other countries; and behold there is another city, and another temple, even the holy temple where they worship Jehovah in the palace of Osiris. The new deities have supplanted the old ones. I hear voices—the prophet, the Son of God cries aloud. Who is it? It is Christ. Ah! I see Him; He is at the marriage of Cana; He changes the water into wine.’

“Here Cagliostro bounded from his seat, uttering a loud scream. ‘No, no!’ he shouted. ‘You shall not be the only one to do this miracle;—I also will show it, I also will unveil the mystery. Nothing is hidden from me; I know all; I am antediluvian—immortal. Nothing is concealed from me; nothing is impossible—Ego sum qui sum.’

“He then seized a pitcher full of the freshest and purest water which he made us look at and taste. He put some of it into a large crystal cup and taking up a phial poured a few drops out of it into the water. Immediately the water turned the colour of gold and the liquid was transformed into a sparkling wine—looking very much like Orvieto—but which he said was the Falernian of the old Romans. Some of the company tasted it and pronounced it exquisite. Cagliostro resumed his discourse, conducting himself as though inspired. He spoke of his most famous secrets, of his balsams, of his elixirs, and he exhibited one which he declared would prolong life and restore youthful vigour. Some of this he gave certain persons of advanced age who were present to drink, saying that its effects would be visible immediately; and sure enough, the colour presently came into the faded cheeks of those who had partaken of it and the wrinkles seemed in some mysterious manner to vanish from their faces. This afforded Cagliostro a good opportunity to magnify the virtues of his specific, but it appeared to me that very much the same effect would have been produced by a good glass of Montefiascone.

“Cagliostro next informed us that he possessed the art of increasing the size of precious stones and that he was willing to exhibit his power immediately. So he requested Cardinal Bernis to lend him the solitaire diamond ring that he always wore and placed it in a crucible into which he poured several liquids. He then began to recite some sort of charm made up of Arabic and Egyptian words. After this he put several powders into the crucible, among them one of a brilliant red hue, and in a few minutes he returned Cardinal Bernis his ring with the diamond twice its original size. The delighted cardinal slipped it on to his finger, crying out that it was a miracle. I am more inclined to believe that the ring was cleverly changed in the crucible and that the one given back to the cardinal had a large rock crystal in it instead of a brilliant.

“Cagliostro’s next proceeding was to call a young girl into the room and to make her gaze steadfastly at a crystal bottle filled with water. The child, whom he called his ward, declared that she saw therein a street leading from one great city to another near it, along which ran an enormous crowd of men and women crying out, ‘Down with the king.’ Cagliostro asked her what country it was and she replied that she heard the people shouting, ‘To Versailles!’ and that there was a nobleman in the midst of them. Cagliostro turned towards us and remarked: ‘Well! my ward has predicted future events. It will not be long before Louis XVI is assaulted by his people in his palace of Versailles; a duke will head the crowd; the monarchy will be overthrown, the Bastile destroyed and tyranny be succeeded by liberty.’

“ ‘Diamine!’ exclaimed His Eminence Cardinal Bernis, ‘How dare you venture to make such prophecies concerning my master?’

“ ‘I am sorry, but they will prove true,’ quietly replied the performer, and the fact is undoubted that the scenes foreshadowed actually occurred at the outbreak of the French Revolution.

“Cagliostro,” continues the account we are quoting, “produced a decided sensation in the room. Opinions were divided about him; some thought him a superior being gifted with a strange faculty of second sight; some were satisfied that he was a charlatan and an impostor. I was strongly inclined to this view,” says the Abbé Benedetti. He was supported in it by the action of the papal authorities.

In the last days of the year, when the storm had broken in Paris, Cagliostro was arrested, together with his wife and the capuchin monk who had been present at the strange meeting above described. All three were first conducted to the castle of St. Angelo and then handed over to the Inquisition and examined by the Holy Office. Cagliostro repudiated all the charges brought against him, but his wife, fearing the rope and the stake, told the story of her husband’s life in its most minute particulars and threw the entire blame upon him. He was finally condemned to death, but Pius VI commuted the punishment into perpetual imprisonment in the fortress of San Leo, after he had publicly abjured his errors in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. His wife was obliged to enter the convent of St. Appollonia in Trastevere where she died, forgotten and in obscurity. Balsamo died in prison in 1795.

CHAPTER IX

THE PIOMBI OF VENICE

The student of history is familiar with the story of the growth of the great Venetian republic from small beginnings to a position of commanding importance in the world. This was the work of its oligarchic institutions and the despotic power wielded by its government, nominally republican, but vested in the irresponsible hands of a certain section of the people. Supreme executive functions were exercised by the famous Council of Ten, which had consolidated its authority after many struggles within and without and maintained it by the usual methods at the disposal of the strong hand. All who dared to conspire against existing authority, or threatened the peace and safety and continued prosperity of the people, became liable to penalties and punishments designed to warn them and, if necessary, to coerce and repress them. The measures adopted were the same as those in force elsewhere; pecuniary fines were imposed, joined often with personal chastisement and banishment with the knowledge that return to Venice would mean the forfeiture of life by mutilation and death, publicly or privately inflicted, consignment to the galleys, or imprisonment varying in term from short to long periods.

Capital punishment was variously inflicted; Sometimes in public, as when a murderer was beheaded on the scene of the crime and then hung from one of the windows of the Doge’s palace or between the two columns of the Piazetta. Sometimes the culprit, if the offence was great, was paraded the whole length of the Grand Canal, frustrato e arrotato. Executions were frequently carried out in private with the purpose of sparing some offender of high rank from the ignominy of being exposed to the public gaze. It was claimed for the Council of Ten and the inquisitors that although the laws were harsh and severe to the last degree, justice was administered legally and regularly and profound secrecy shrouded all their actions. On the whole, the government was better than its reputation.

The earliest prisons in Venice were established in the very centre of government in the Grand Ducal Palace, where the doge, or chief magistrate, resided and ruled, supported by the Council of Ten, whose chief assistants were the Inquisitors of State, especially appointed to protect its interests by enforcing that policy of secretiveness and mystery so dear to Venetian administration. A decree dated 1321 records the order to construct certain prisons beneath the palace, and another, five years later, orders them enlarged. The old historians are much concerned in denying that these first prisons were underground, although the fact that they were called pozzi or “wells” must be taken as clear proof that they were below ground. This description is borne out by the evidence of one who spoke from personal knowledge. Casanova was not himself an inmate of these lower dungeons, but he tells us that he knew them to be like damp tombs; further, he says that they were always two feet deep in the salt water which had penetrated from the canal outside. The occupant was perforce obliged to remain constantly upon a bench or platform raised above the level of the water and on which his bed was laid. He spent both day and night there and consumed his frugal allowance of thin soup and black ammunition bread with all possible speed to save it from the voracious water rats, great numbers of which infested the place. There was little hope for those who were thrown into the pozzi, and yet Casanova assures us that some reached a green old age in

these horrible habitations. One criminal who died there when Casanova was in the Piombi had spent thirty-seven years in one of the wells. He was forty-four years old when first imprisoned. This was a Frenchman named Beguelin, who had been a captain in the service of the Venetian republic and had been employed as a spy in the war against the Turks in 1716. During the siege of Corfu he had sold information to both sides, and when caught by the Venetians he was sentenced to death, but it was commuted to life imprisonment.

The prison of the Piombi or the “Leads” was of quite a different character and was so called because it lay on the topmost story of the ducal palace immediately under the leaden roof. It consisted, as indeed may still be seen, of a series of small chambers with a roof so low that a man of six feet could not stand erect under the ceiling. They were not abundantly provided with light or air. Many were darkened by the overhanging eaves and massive projections in the architectural façade, and only a scant supply of air entered through the small windows in the neighbouring passages. Their worst feature was the extraordinary variations of temperature. In the summer, when the dog-day sun beat down pitilessly upon the leads, the heat was almost insupportable; in the winter, being unprovided with fireplaces and having no provision for artificial warmth, they were almost glacial. The disciplinary régime was a mixture of barbarous severity and extreme neglect. Prisoners were only visited once daily by a gaoler who attended half a dozen cells, brought in food and, if necessary, arranged for a doctor’s visit many hours after occasion arose. This single visit was made soon after sunrise, when the secretary to the inquisitor, who held all the keys, suffered them to go out of his own keeping for the brief space of an hour. At first, no books were issued except those of a dreary devotional description. All writing materials, pens, ink or paper were scrupulously forbidden. Imprisonment might be quite solitary till the loneliness long protracted grew all but maddening; the alternative was uncongenial companionship with some offensive and personally unclean creature from whom there was no escape day or night, a far greater hardship than unbroken solitude. What life really meant in the Piombi has been graphically recorded at first hand by one who endured it for a year or more, but, goaded to despair, dared all to escape from its intolerable evils.

The escape of Giovanni Casanova from under the Leads of the Grand Ducal Palace in 1756, as described by himself, exhibits a remarkable combination of patient ingenuity and the most determined courage. The incident deserves to be inserted here in some detail, and will serve to bring home to the reader some of the curious conditions of the inmates of gaols in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The story is to be found in his autobiography, a book of memoirs, the authenticity of which has been seriously questioned, but his prison experiences bear the distinct impress of truth; he writes with a precision and particularity that must be wanting from any purely imaginative fiction. He must surely have acted personally in the events he describes; the difficulties he surmounted were real; the perils and adventures through which he passed successfully could never have been invented; all the incidents and episodes were solid, sober facts. In other respects these memoirs may appear shadowy and untrustworthy. Much of the matter seems too highly coloured and full of exaggeration. This prince of vauriens was no doubt a great liar. We can easily believe that he was constantly in luck’s way, long able to keep his purse full by his winnings at the gaming table; but when he tells us how he rubbed elbows with the best in society, appeared at European courts, talked familiarly with crowned heads and received civilities and high consideration from princes and great personages, we are disposed to question his veracity. He was unquestionably a real personage and the hero of many stirring and surprising adventures, and in none does he show to so much advantage as in his escape from the prison of the Piombi. It is certain that at an early stage of his profligate and depraved career, he came under the grave displeasure of the authorities of his native Venice and was committed, arbitrarily, no doubt, but not altogether wrongly, to the tender mercies of the legal custodians of the Grand Ducal Prison. His arrest put a summary check upon his vicious and dissolute proceedings, but it was not on account of his immorality that they laid hands upon him; his chief offence was that he was supposed to deal in magic and was in possession of certain forbidden books on the Black Art, containing the formulas and incantations to be used in raising evil spirits and communing with the devil.

Early one morning the chief agent of the Inquisitors of State, who was known as “Messier Grande,” came to his lodgings with an escort of thirty soldiers and arrested him while he was in bed. While the police secured his papers and his compromising books, Casanova dressed himself leisurely; he shaved and combed his locks and put on his best clothes, a shirt of finest lace and a long coat of the best taffety, “just as if he was going to a wedding party,” he explains. Then Messier Grande carried him off in a gondola to a place of security where he was locked up until the afternoon, when an order arrived to take him to prison. The police gondola followed a devious track through the smaller canals and at last reached the Grand Canal where it ran alongside the palace stairs. Here they landed and the prisoner was ushered into the presence of an official wearing a patrician’s robe, who scanned him from head to foot and said briefly, “Take him and lock him up.” This was the secretary of the inquisitors, who talked in Tuscan as if ashamed to use the Venetian dialect.

Casanova next gives us a glimpse of the interior of the prison: “Messier Grande now handed me over to the warder of the Piombi, who, with an enormous bunch of keys in his hand, led me up two small staircases into a gallery, to a locked door, through it into a second gallery, at the end of which we entered a dirty garret, badly lighted by a circular window high up. I thought this was my prison chamber, but I was mistaken, for at the end was another door double-lined with iron, perforated by a circular hole, and I was ordered to enter. For the moment I was otherwise engaged, curiously examining a strange machine strongly attached to the wall. It was an iron horseshoe an inch thick and five inches across the opening. ‘Oh that,’ explained the gaoler, ‘you would like to know what that is? When their excellencies, the inquisitors, desire that any one should be strangled, he takes his seat on the stool below, and this machine is put round his neck, half of which it encircles. A silken cord, attached to a wheel, is placed round the other half and by turning a handle the silk is tightened until death ensues and the sufferer gives up his soul to God—for you will understand the priest is close at hand and never leaves him until all is over.’ ‘Ah,’ I replied, ‘and I presume it is your business to tighten the cord.’ He would not condescend to answer but led me into my cell and left me asking whether I would like to order any food. ‘I haven’t thought of it yet,’ I said lightly, and he went away. I paid the penalty of thus showing temper, for he did not return till next day and I was left for twenty-four hours wholly without food.”

The prisoner, after recovering a little from his despondency and despair, proceeded to examine his cage. He walked round it with bent head, for it was barely five and a half feet high, and Casanova was a tall man, of quite six feet. He found that the room was some twelve feet square, with an alcove on the fourth side for a bed which was absent, and there was no other furniture whatever. The one small window was closed with six iron bars and gave but little light for a solid block of stone—part of the architecture—lay more than half across, but there was enough light to show him numbers of rats running to and fro. He fell into a state of semi-coma, and passed several hours absorbed in gloomy reflections. Then suddenly he roused himself and displayed ungovernable fury. No one had come near him, he was suffering from intolerable thirst, and the slow hours dragged along without a sign of relief. He raged and stormed and uttered the most piercing cries but to no purpose, as they were not heard beyond his cell walls, and after an hour or more of vain appeals he threw himself exhausted and despairing on the floor, believing that the inhuman inquisitors meant to leave him there to die. What had he done? He taxed his brain seeking the reason for this abominable ill-usage and could find none. He was willing to confess himself a libertine, a gambler, an overbold talker, with no thought but to enjoy life; but in all this there was nothing criminal, no offence against the state. At last nature came to his aid. Worn out by his fierce passion and the want of food and drink, utterly broken and exhausted, he fell into a sound sleep. His awakening was the more terrible. The great clock above his head, and so near that it seemed in his very room, clanged out midnight, and as he turned his hands touched another, icy cold and motionless. Feeling sure it must be that of some corpse, he again shouted aloud in uncontrollable terror. But it was his own hand; he had lain upon it in his heavy sleep and all feeling had left it. Gradually he recovered himself as the dawn broke gray and imperfect, and about eight o’clock came the welcome sound in the distance of jangling keys and bolts run back, and his gaoler appeared, who asked in brutal derision, “Have you had time to think of food yet? Hungry, eh?” Casanova disdained to complain and quietly called for a full meal. “All right, give me the money. Anything else? Don’t you want a bed, a table, chair and so forth? If you fancy you are only here for one night, you are very much mistaken.” The prisoner made out a list including papers and books, but was plainly told they were forbidden. Then the gaoler, whose name was Laurent, left him and presently returned with soup, a little meat and other necessaries.

Casanova’s condition now was pitiable. He had no appetite and he spent the day in horrible discomfort; the sun as it rose to the meridian beat down fiercely on the leaden roof till the room was like an oven, and although he stripped naked the perspiration poured off him in a perfect stream. His sufferings from the heat abated as the evening drew on, but the night had its own terrors: the incessant striking of the clock, the hideous noise from the rats as they ranged to and fro was horrifying, and worse than all, he became the prey of innumerable fleas who fastened on him with inappeasable fury till their incessant attacks caused him painful spasms and poisoned all his blood. Not strangely, the confinement, with the mental and physical tortures endured, soon told upon the prisoner’s health and he was attacked with a dangerous illness which presently yielded to medical treatment, for the authorities provided an excellent doctor, and thus Casanova’s chief woes were those of weariness, heat and fleas. As the days went on and September passed, he was buoyed up with the hope of coming release, for on the first of October new inquisitors would enter upon office, and he felt sure they would set him free. He lay awake throughout the last night of September, counting the moments till daylight should bring his gaoler with the welcome intelligence on which he counted and which never arrived. Many weeks passed before he could bear up against this bitter disappointment, but his fortitude returned with a firm resolve to escape from durance even at the peril of his life.

The forces of nature seemed likely to intervene on his behalf. One morning the shock of an earthquake shook the ducal palace, an off-shoot, really, of that seismic disturbance which at this time destroyed Lisbon. Casanova was looking out from his garret window when he saw the massive stone architrave under the roof outside oscillate to and fro, and he realised then what had happened. Warders and soldiers rushed in terrified, but Casanova took a savage joy in the cataclysm in the vague hope that the solid building would totter to the ground and he would be cast out upon the Piazza of St. Mark a free man, or perish under the ruins. To the dismay of his keepers he raised his voice in impious prayer, “Another stroke, Great God, another and a stronger!” at which the others, believing he had gone mad, crossed themselves and fled.

Casanova philosophically tells us that the man possessed of one fixed aspiration will generally compass his end, however highly placed; he will achieve rank and fortune and a great position, if he keeps his mind steadily to his one idea. With him this idea was to escape, and he pondered over it incessantly, puzzling over the means by which he could attempt it. Certainly they did not lie ready to his hand. He saw a way, feasible enough, of getting out of his cell, but could not imagine how to procure the necessary tools. He was securely lodged, alone and apart, absolutely cut off from outside and his fellow creatures, save his warder, who could only help him by braving terrible penalties. Armed sentries were posted in the corridors and at his door, whose vigilance he could hardly hope to elude and who would easily have overpowered him if he attacked them.

Yet the way of escape was possible through the floor of his chamber which, being perfectly familiar with the geography of the palace, he knew to be just above the hall of the inquisitors where they met for business in the evening after the Council of the Ten, of which they were members, had concluded their proceedings. If he could but break through the floor and lower himself into the great hall below when it was unoccupied, he might walk off by the grand staircase, that of the “Giants,” which visitors to Venice may still admire. There was no difficulty about the exit, but how was he to reach it? We shall see presently how the pressure of his needs stimulated his active brain and sharpened his ingenious wits.

His mind was still labouring to find some solution of the problem when his ill-luck interposed and any action was postponed by the decision of the authorities to give him a cell-companion. The new secretary of the inquisitors had a special grudge against a prisoner just taken, and desired to confine him in the worst quarters possible. Casanova’s cell enjoyed this evil reputation, and Laurent brought him in with the air of one who is conferring a favour, although Casanova would have infinitely preferred to remain alone. The newcomer was in the depths of distress; he was a groom who had dared to fall in love with his master’s daughter, and was miserably unhappy. This wretched creature, who wept unceasingly, shared Casanova’s cell for nearly a month and was then removed to another prison, the Quatri, used by the inquisitors for commonplace offenders, whence after five years’ incarceration, he was exiled to Cherigo for another ten years. Laurent explained that it was a privilege to be detained in the Piombi, which was reserved for prisoners of distinction, while the Quatri received ordinary criminals. After this experience, Casanova’s privacy was again disturbed by the arrival of another companion. This second prisoner was a prosperous money lender who posed as a pauper and would not yield to the exactions attempted by the inquisitors. He was, no doubt, a dishonest person, overreaching and greedy of gain, extraordinarily mean and avaricious; but not unwilling, when forced to it, to purchase his freedom.

Now Casanova’s condition and circumstance were slightly improved. On New Year’s Day, 1756, he was permitted to receive a present from his friend and patron, a noble patrician, by name Bragadino, whose life he had once saved and who in his gratitude treated him as an adopted son. The present was a fine silk dressing gown warmly lined with fox skin and a bag made out of bear hide into which he could put his feet. These were welcome gifts, for the temperature had gone down below freezing point and it was as cold now in the Piombi in winter time as it had been insufferably hot in the past summer. A money allowance was also made him over and above the sum spent on his subsistence, and this further grant might be applied to the purchase of books. Another boon was conceded; that of permission to leave the cell and take exercise in the adjoining corridor, a privilege which led to important consequences. For now at last he laid his hands upon certain “unconsidered trifles” which were to prove of invaluable use in furthering his escape.

This corridor in which he took regular exercise was the receptacle for much old rubbish; several pieces of rickety furniture had been thrown here, a couple of cassoni, or great chests, and a quantity of ancient documents, the records of long forgotten criminal trials. From time to time he turned over this heap of nondescript articles, among which were a warming pan, fire-irons and a pair of old candlesticks, the discarded possessions, no doubt, of some distinguished predecessor to whose comfort and convenience they probably ministered. One other bit of treasure he also found and pounced upon eagerly for future use as a weapon of offence and defence, and yet more as a workman’s tool. This was a straight piece of iron, a foot and a half in length and as thick as a man’s thumb, no doubt a bolt or bar that had been in the lock of a door. Pursuing his investigations, he came upon another article of possible value to him; a piece of black marble six inches long, three inches wide and one inch thick. He promptly took possession of both the bolt and the stone without precisely realising the purpose they would serve, and carried them cautiously to his cell where he hid them carefully away. On subsequent examination he saw plainly that the marble would serve as a whetstone, and that by rubbing it assiduously upon the crowbar, he could manufacture an eight-sided, sharp-edged instrument admirably adapted to help him in breaking prison.

Spurred on by his eagerness to provide himself with a weapon so formidable and so unexpectedly put within his reach, Casanova applied himself with unflagging diligence to his task. His difficulties were enormous; he worked in semi-darkness; he could only hold the whetstone in his left hand; he had no oil to assist the trituration; he could only use his own saliva, which left his throat as dry and rough as sandpaper. “I can hardly describe,” he tells us, “the fatigue that possessed me and the acute pain I suffered in completing my laborious undertaking. It was worse torture than any contrived by the most cruel tyrants who have oppressed mankind. My right arm became so stiff that I could barely move it; the palm of my left hand, which held the stone, was one large sore from the blisters that formed and burst as I continued to work on unflinchingly. But I was rewarded after a week of incessant toil by producing an octangular stylet, each side one and one-half inches in length, and the whole tapering into a fine sharp point.” The weapon once manufactured, it was of paramount importance to conceal it, but after long consideration it was lodged safely, and as it proved, successfully, in his armchair underneath the seat.

All was now ready for the momentous operation, but it must be approached with extreme caution. It was possible, certain indeed, that by long and patient labour a practicable hole might be made in the floor, but how to guard against the discovery of the work while in progress? It would probably occupy a couple of months at least, and how were the soldiers who waited upon the prisoners to be prevented from sweeping the floor during this long period of time? Casanova at once invented a fictitious throat complaint and pretended that dust greatly irritated and aggravated the ill. Laurent, the warder, insisting upon cleanliness, suggested that the floor should still be swept but not until after it had been watered. Again Casanova objected, dreading some other disorder and justifying his complaint by spitting blood copiously which he had surreptitiously obtained from a pricked finger. The doctor was called in and took the prisoner’s part, and the result was a peremptory order that the floor should not be touched again. Casanova had now a fair field, but it was winter time and daylight hours were too few to allow of lengthened labour; indeed, the cell was dark for nineteen hours out of the twenty-four.

Again his marvellous ingenuity stood him in good stead. He set himself to contrive a lamp and made it out of the most unpromising materials. He appropriated a saucer in which they served him fried eggs, and he made a wick out of his cotton shirt. To strike a light, flint and steel were required; the first Laurent brought him in the shape of a stone to be steeped in vinegar and applied as a sovereign remedy for a raging toothache; the second he found in the steel buckle of his small clothes. For sulphur he had recourse to the friendly doctor who gave him some in a prescription, and last of all he found the tinder in the wadding which his tailor always sewed in under the arm-pits of his coat. Fresh and exasperating delay was caused by the arrival of another unwelcome companion, another Jew, a most irritating and disagreeable person, who made Casanova desperate, not only by checking the work which it would have been unsafe to prosecute before him, but by constantly interfering with his fellow prisoner’s comfort in everything he did. Extremely fat and lazy, he spent three parts of the day in bed and was consequently unable to sleep at night. Once he ventured to rouse Casanova to talk to him and pass the time. Casanova was furiously angry. “Hateful villain,” he cried, “Sleep is the sole boon a prisoner can enjoy because it brings him forgetfulness. If ever you wake me again, I swear I will strangle you.” It was well that the work at the floor had not been commenced before the Jew came in, for he would assuredly have betrayed Casanova, and as it was he absolutely refused to agree to the arrangement of not sweeping the floor. Fortunately, and to Casanova’s immense relief, a fortnight after Easter this unaccommodating person was removed to the Quatri prison, where he spent a couple of years.

Casanova was at last free to commence work in earnest. The bed removed and the lamp lighted, the prisoner lay flat on the floor, crowbar in hand, and furnished with a napkin alongside in which to collect the fragments as they were chipped out. All these he flung next day behind the heap of rubbish in the outer gallery. Inch by inch Casanova cut through the massive planks and at the end of three weeks he had pierced a triple flooring. But now a serious obstacle interposed in the form of a layer of the little pieces of marble known in Venice as terrazzo marmorino—the ordinary pavement of rich men’s houses—and the sharpened bolt would not make any impression on this material. This difficulty he overcame, however, by attacking the cement which joined the fragments together. Four days sufficed to tear up the pavement and reach another plank below, probably the last of its series. Meanwhile, time passed; a midsummer sun again poured down its scorching rays upon the leads during the day, and by night the would-be prison breaker, half-choked with the accumulated heat, lay at work, his cherished lamp by his side, slowly gnawing through his cage with the busy crowbar. One day he had a terrible fright. In the middle of the afternoon he heard the grating of the bolt in the passage outside—an unusual sound at that hour of the day. He was taken by surprise, for he was at work under his bed with his lamp alight. Hastily throwing his crowbar into the hole in the floor, he blew out the lamp, crawled out and threw himself just as he was, naked, upon his bed only a second or two before Laurent appeared, ushering in a stranger who recoiled on the threshold, overcome by the heat of the room and the loathsome smell of the half-extinguished lamp. “Into what devilish place have you brought me?” he cried to his escort, “and who is this loathsome creature?” Laurent tried to reassure him, and took him out again, begging Casanova to put on some clothes. The newcomer, who promptly recognised him, proved to be a fresh cell-companion, a Venetian of rank, Count Fenarolo, who had offended against the strict etiquette that governed all dealings with foreign ambassadors and found himself committed to the Piombi. He was a gentleman and was pleased to find himself with Casanova, whom he knew personally and to whom he brought all the latest news from outside, particularly the gossip current as to the causes of Casanova’s imprisonment. One story was that he had invented a new religion; another that he had induced a young patrician to turn atheist; a third that he had created a disturbance in the theatre by hissing the plays of a writer who had many powerful friends.

The count was very much in the way, but he behaved with great friendliness and generosity. He freely shared with his companion the rich and liberal fare sent in to him, and when he discovered the hole in the floor, promised to keep the secret inviolable; more, to assist the fugitive in making his escape by lowering him through the hole when completed and afterward pulling up the rope.

Eight days later the count was set at liberty, and by that time the last plank was perforated so that Casanova, on applying his eye to the first small hole made, saw plainly that his conjecture had been right and that he was looking down into the hall of the Council of Ten. But he found the passage was blocked by an intervening beam of the ceiling below, and he was obliged to enlarge the aperture to get beyond it. Everything at last was ready, it only remained to fix the day and hour of departure. He settled for the 27th of August, the eve of the Feast of St. Augustin, when there would be no council meeting and no one about. Carefully closing the aperture lest its existence might be betrayed, Casanova patiently awaited the supreme moment, but, unhappily, on the 25th he was overwhelmed by a crushing blow.

Laurent came to him at midday and bade him prepare for good news. “You are to come with me,” he said. “Let me dress properly,” cried Casanova, overjoyed, taking for granted that he was to be set free. “There is no need for that,” replied the gaoler, “you are not going far, only to another chamber better and brighter than this, with two windows from which you can see half Venice, and in which you can stand upright.”

The poor prisoner, astounded, sank fainting into a chair. “Give me vinegar to smell,” he whispered almost inarticulately, “and beg the secretary to leave me where I am.” At which Laurent laughed in scorn. “Have you gone mad? What! You refuse to move out of hell into paradise? Come, come,—orders must be obeyed. Get up, and I will help you with your books and belongings.”

So the fruit of months of labour must be lost irretrievably and, worse than all, the hole in the floor must be discovered. Yet in the midst of all this misery and disappointment, one crumb of consolation remained—the crowbar, concealed in the armchair, went with him into his new quarters. There was a terrible uproar when the hole was laid bare, and much seeking and poking among mattresses and cushions, but the precious weapon escaped notice. Nevertheless, nothing could be done with it. The new cell which was deliciously cool and fresh, had clean walls which would show the slightest scratch on the surface. Escape seemed farther off than ever.

One day Casanova asked the gaoler to buy him the works of Maffei; but as that worthy profited by any surplus of the daily allowance that might be in hand at the end of the month, Laurent was terribly averse to extraordinary expenses, and suggested that other people in the prison had books and that they might advantageously lend them to each other. A system of regular exchange now began, and a correspondence was started by means of the hollow backs of the vellum-bound books, which lay flat when the books were closed, but formed a kind of pocket when opened. Letters passed back and forth between the tenants of neighbouring cells. Casanova found that overhead were two occupants, one Father Balbi, a monk of noble Venetian family, and the other an aged man, Count Aschino of Udine. Casanova’s pen was the long nail of his little finger trimmed to a point and dipped into mulberry juice; the fly leaves of the books themselves supplied the paper. The subject discussed was eternally the same,—that of their escape; but the mind of the reverend Father Balbi was more critical than inventive, and Casanova felt that they could not work again for awhile. Nevertheless, he informed the monk of the existence of his precious crowbar, and offered to convey it to him if he would consent to use it in making an opening through the ceiling of his own cell into the garret above and then cutting his way through the floor to reach Casanova, who would answer for the rest of the operation. Certainly he had formed no high opinion of the discretion and skill of his new ally, but realised that he must work with such tools as he had at hand. Balbi’s first step was to provide himself with a large number of pictures of saints to cover up and conceal the damaged ceiling and floor. The next difficulty was to pass the working tool safely from one cell to the other. The fur-lined dressing gown was first thought of as a vehicle, but was abandoned. At last, after severe cogitation, an astute plan was devised. Casanova begged the gaoler to buy him a new folio edition of the Vulgate, just published, and the volume was procured in the hopes that the crowbar might be concealed in the back of the binding. But it was two inches too long and the ends protruded!

Something else must be tried to remedy this obvious objection, and the fertile brain of the resolute adventurer was equal to the task. St. Michael’s day was at hand, and Casanova proposed to celebrate it by offering a feast of macaroni and cheese to his fellow prisoners. Laurent brought a message to the effect that these neighbours were anxious for a sight of the great Bible. “Good,” said Casanova, “I will send it to them with the macaroni; but bring me the biggest dish you have, for I like to do things well.” The crowbar was then wrapped in paper and stowed in the back of the book, care being taken that it should project only an inch on either side. One anxiety remained,—would the macaroni dish be big enough to hide the book on which it was to be placed? By great good fortune the dish was of enormous size. Casanova himself prepared the mess, seasoned it and filled the dish almost to overflowing with melted butter. Laurent grumbled at the brimming dish, but carried it—book, crowbar, macaroni and all—safely to Balbi.

The monk got to work at once and within a week broke a hole in the ceiling, groaning all the time at the severity of the labour; but, encouraged by his correspondent and partner, he took more kindly to his business as he went on. At last, at 10 A.M. on the 16th of October, a slight tapping overhead assured Casanova that the job was accomplished so far. He had now no doubt that with the help of his companion he could in three or four hours bore a hole in the roof of the ducal palace and obtain access to the leads. All was ready for the attempt when once more it was interrupted by the unwelcome appearance of a fresh cell-companion, the most offensive and unmanageable of any as yet inflicted upon him. He heard the bolts shot back outside in the early afternoon, and had barely time to warn Balbi above to desist from work and regain his own cell, before Laurent arrived with the new prisoner and began to apologise for the annoyance he must give Casanova in bringing such a creature into close association with him.

The newcomer was not of prepossessing appearance; a man of villainous looks, forty or fifty years of age, short and thin, badly dressed and wearing a round black wig; a low blackguard evidently, and the gaoler called him that to his face without making any visible impression. When the lock was turned on him, after expressing fulsome thanks for the promise made him that he should share Casanova’s food, he took out a rosary and looked round for some sacred image before which he could tell his beads. “I was brought up a Christian and am always attentive to my religious duties,” he whined, as he went through his prayers and was greatly relieved to find that his fellow prisoner was not a Jew. After devouring greedily all the food put before him, he explained that his calling was that of a barber and spy, and that he had discovered a conspiracy against the Republic, but his revelations were deemed insufficient and he had therefore been arrested. His name was Soradaci; he had a wife, the daughter of an ex-secretary to the Council, and he expected, as did all who came into the Piombi, to be released within a few days.