aboard his vessel, which lay in the Bosphorus, having put out too far to
sea, he was captured by pirates and carried prisoner to Egypt, though,
by rare good fortune, his gold and merchandise were in a safe place all
the while. The pirates sold him to a Saracen lord, who putting him in
fetters, sent him afield to till the wheat, which grows very finely in
that country. Fabio offered his master to pay a heavy ransom, but the
Paynim's daughter, who loved him and was fain to bring him to the end
she desired, over-persuaded her father not to let him go at any price.
Reduced to the necessity of trusting to himself alone for release, he
filed his irons with the tools given him for tilling the ground, made
good his escape to the Nile and threw himself into a boat. Casting
loose, he got to the sea, which was not far off, and when on the point
of death from thirst and hunger, was rescued by a Spanish vessel bound
for Genoa. But, after keeping her course a week, the ship was caught in
a storm which drove her on the coast of Dalmatia. In making the shore,
she was wrecked on a reef. All the crew were drowned except Fabio, who
reached the beach after much difficulty, clinging to a hen-coop. There
he lay senseless, but was presently succoured by a handsome widow, named
Loreta, whose house was upon the seashore. She had him carried to it,
put him to bed in her own chamber, watched over him and lavished every
care for his recovery.
On coming to himself, he smelt the perfume of myrtles and roses, and
looking out of window saw a garden that descended in successive
declivities to the sea. Signora Loreta, standing at his bed's head, took
up her viol and began playing a tender air.
Fabio, ravished with gratitude and pleasure, fell to kissing the lady's
hands a thousand times over. He thanked her earnestly, assuring her he
was less touched by the saving of his life than by the fact of his owing
his recovery to the pains of so fair a benefactress.
Presently he rose and went to walk with her in the garden, and sitting
down to rest in a thicket of myrtles, he drew the young widow on his
knee and manifested his gratitude by a thousand caresses.
He found her not insensible to his efforts and spent some hours by her
side drowned in amorous delight. But soon he grew pensive, and suddenly
asked his hostess what month they were in, and what day of the month
precisely it then was.
And when she told him, he fell to groaning and lamenting sore, finding
it lacked but twenty-four short hours of a full year since he had
received the five hundred ducats of Eliezer the Jew. The thought of
breaking his promise and exposing his pledge to the reproaches of the
Circumcised was intolerable to him. Signora Loreta inquiring the reason
of his despair, he told her the whole story; and being a very pious
woman and an ardent votress of the Holy Mother of God, she shared his
chagrin to the full. The difficulty was not to procure the five hundred
ducats; a Banker in a neighbouring town had had such a sum in his hands
for the last six months at Fabio's disposition. But to travel from the
coast of Dalmatia to Venice in four-and-twenty hours, with a broken sea
and contrary winds, was a thing beyond all hope.
"Let us have the money ready to begin with," said Fabio.
And when one of his hostess's serving-men had brought the sum, the noble
Merchant ordered a vessel to be brought close in to the shore. In her
he laid the bags containing the ducats, then went to the Signora
Loreta's Oratory in search of an image of the Virgin with the Infant
Jesus--an image of cedar-wood and greatly revered. This he set in the
little bark, near the rudder, and addressed in these words:
"Madonna, you are my pledge. Now the Jew Eliezer must needs be paid
to-morrow; 'tis a question of mine honour and of yours, Madonna, and of
your Son's good name. What a mortal sinner, such as I, cannot do, you
will assuredly accomplish, unsullied Star of the Sea, you whose bosom
suckled Him who walked upon the waters. Bear this silver to Eliezer the
Jew, in the Ghetto at Venice, to the end the Circumcised may never say
you are a bad surety."
And pushing the bark afloat, he doffed his hat and cried softly:
"Farewell, Madonna! farewell!"
The vessel sailed out to sea, and long the merchant and the widow
followed it with their eyes. When night began to close in, a furrow of
light was seen marking her wake over the waters, which were fallen to a
dead calm.
At Venice next morning Eliezer, on opening his door, saw a bark in the
narrow canal of the Ghetto laden with full sacks and manned by a little
figure of black wood, flashing in the clear morning sunbeams. The
vessel stopped before the house where the seven-branched candlestick was
carved; and the Jew recognized the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus,
pledge of the Christian Merchant.
HISTORY OF DONA MARIA D'AVALOS AND DON FABRICIO, DUKE D'ANDRIA
TO HENRY GAUTHIER-VILLARS
HISTORY OF DONA MARIA D'AVALOS AND DON FABRICIO, DUKE D'ANDRIA
_Done Marie d'Avalos, l'une des belles princesses du pais, mariee avec
le prince de Venouse, laquelle s'estant enamourachee du comte
d'Andriane, l'un des beaux princes du pais aussy, et s'estans tous
deux concertez a la jouissance et le mari l'ayant descouverte ... les
fit tous deux massacrer par gens appostez; si que le lendemain on
trouva ces deux belles moictiez et creatures exposees et tendues sur
le pave devant la porte de la maison, toutes mortes et froides, a la
veue de tous les passants, qui les larmoyoient et plaignoient de leur
miserable estat._[1]
(Pierre de Bourdeilles, abbe et Seigneur de Brantome. _Recueil des
dames, seconde partie._)
[Footnote 1: "Dona Maria d'Avalos, one of the fair Princesses of the
land, and married to the Prince of Venosa, was enamoured of the Count
d'Andriane, likewise one of the noble Princes of the country. So being
both of them come together to enjoy their passion, and the husband
having discovered it ... had the twain of them slain by men appointed
thereto. In such wise that next morning the fair and noble pair, unhappy
beings, were seen lying stretched out and exposed to public view on the
pavement in front of the house door, all dead and cold, in sight of all
passers-by, who could not but weep and lament over their piteous lot."]
It was a day of high rejoicing at Naples, when the Prince of Venosa, a
rich and puissant Lord, was wed to Dona Maria, of the illustrious house
of Avalos.
Drawn by horses bedizened with scales, feathers or furs, in such wise as
to figure forth dragons, griffins, lions, lynxes, panthers and unicorns,
were twelve cars which did bear through all the city an host of naked
men and women, gilded all over, for to represent the Gods of Olympus,
come down to Earth to do honour to the Venosian nuptials. On one of
these cars was to be seen a young lad with wings treading underfoot
three old hags of an hideous ugliness. A tablet was fixed up above the
car to display the meaning thereof, to wit: LOVE VANQUISHETH THE FATAL
SISTERS. Whereby 'twas to be understood that the new-wedded pair would
enjoy many a long year of happiness by each other's side.
But this presage of Love, more strong than the Fates, was false withal.
Two years after her marriage, one day she was gone abroad a-fowling,
Dona Maria d'Avalos saw the Duke d'Andria, which was a gallant,
handsome and well-knit man, and did straight love the same. An honest
girl and a well-born, heedful of her noble name and still in that callow
youth when women have not gotten boldness yet to match their naughty
desires, she sent no go-between to the nobleman for to make assignation
in Church or at her own abode. She never told her love, but did bide the
time when her good star should bring beside her him which had grown in
the twinkling of an eye more dear to her than the day. She had not to
tarry long. For the Duke d'Andria had noted her beauty, and went
straightway to pay his court to the Prince of Venosa. Encountering Dona
Maria in the Palace with no other by, he did beseech her in right
gentle, and withal gallant and masterful wise, that very favour she was
herself well disposed and well resolved to grant him. She did lead him
to her chamber instantly, and did there refuse him naught of all he was
fain to have of her.
But when he did proffer her his thanks for that she had graciously
yielded to his desires, she made answer:
"My Lord, the desire was mine own more than it was yours. I, it was, was
fain we should lie in the arms one of the other, as we be now laid, in
this bed, to the which I will aye make you dearly welcome, as oft as it
shall please you to come thither."
Every time she was able so to do, from that day forth Dona Maria
d'Avalos would receive in her chamber the Duke d'Andria and this was
many a time and oft, for the Prince of Venosa went much to the chase and
would sometimes spend whole weeks together diverting him with his
friends in one of his pleasure houses he had in the country parts.
The whole while that Dona Maria was abed with her lover, her nurse Lucia
would stand a-watching at the chamber door, telling of her beads and
trembling sore lest the Prince perchance should return home against all
expectation.
'Twas indeed a nobleman mightily feared by reason of his jealous and
grim humour. His enemies did reproach him for his cunning and cruelty,
naming him mongrel cur of fox and she-wolf, stinking hound, if ever
stinking hound was. But his friends would commend him, for that he kept
ever in sure memory whatsoever of right or wrong folk did him, and would
in no wise suffer patiently any injury wrought him or his.
During the space of three full months which were now gone by the lovers
had great joy of each other and content of their desires without or let
or hindrance, when one morning the Nurse came to seek Dona Maria in her
chamber, and spake thus to her:
"Listen, my pearl of pearls; albeit my words this day will be neither of
flowers nor sugar-plums, but of a right serious and fearsome matter. My
Lord the Prince of Venosa hath heard some ill report concerning you and
the Duke d'Andria.
"But now I saw him in the Palace court, as he was a-mounting his horse.
He was gnawing his moustache--a fell sign with him. He was in talk with
two fellows, which had little of the air about them of leading honest
lives; all I heard him tell them was, 'See ye, without being seen!' Of
such sort the orders the noble Prince was charging them withal. And the
worst is, he did stop dead whenas he set eyes on me. My own little pearl
of price, so true as God is in the Holy Sacrament, an if the Prince find
you with the Lord Duke d'Andria, he will kill both the twain of you. You
will be a dead woman; and ah! me, what will become of me?"
The Nurse spake on in this wise and besought her mistress long and sore;
but Dona Maria d'Avalos did send her away without deigning so much as
one word of answer.
As it was Springtide she went forth that same day a-walking in the
country with some ladies of the city. They were following a path
bordered with thorn-trees all a-bloom, when one of the ladies said thus
to her:
"Dogs will sometimes come and stick at travellers' heels, Dona Maria.
Well! look, to-day we be dogged by a great black and white hound!"
And the Princess, turning her head to see, did recognize a certain
Dominican monk which was used to come each day to the courtyard of the
Palazzo Venosa for to rest in the shade there, and in winter-time to
warm him in the great kitchen.
Meanwhile the Nurse, seeing her lady mistress paid no heed to her words,
ran to warn the Duke d'Andria. Moreover the said Duke had reasons of his
own to fear the sweet secret of his loves had been unhappily discovered.
The very evening afore, finding himself followed by a pair of ruffians
armed with arquebuses, he had killed one of the twain with a
sword-thrust, whiles the other had taken to his heels. The Duke felt no
doubt now but these two rascals had been set at him by the Prince of
Venosa.
"Lucia," he said to the Nurse, "I must needs shudder at this danger,
seeing it doth threaten my Lady Maria d'Avalos no less than myself. Tell
her I will not return again to her chamber, cost me what regrets it
will, before that the Prince's suspicions be lulled asleep."
These words the Nurse did report the same evening to Dona Maria, which
did hearken to them with impatience, biting her lip till the blood came.
Learning that the Prince was at the moment abroad, she bade her Nurse go
straight to fetch the Duke d'Andria, and bring him into her chamber; and
so soon as he was come spake thus to him:
"My gracious Lord, a day spent apart from you is to me the cruellest of
torments. I shall not fear to die; but I have not the fortitude to
endure your absence. You should not have loved me, if you had not the
hardihood to brave all for love of me. You should not have loved me if
there were aught else in all the world you set above my love, even mine
own honour and mine own life. Choose; either you shall see me every day
as aforetime, or you shall never see me more."
He made answer:
"Well and good then, Lady, and so be it; for, indeed, there is no room
for ill or evil henceforth betwixt us twain! Verily I do love you as you
would have me love you, even more than your own life."
And that day, which was a Thursday, they did tarry a long time, close
pressed one against the other. Naught of moment fell out ere the Monday
of the next week, on the which day the Prince did apprise his wife how
that he was setting forth with a numerous train for Rome, whither he was
called by the Pope, which was his kinsman. And in very deed a score of
horses were then standing ready saddled and bridled in the Great Court.
Then did the Prince kiss his wife's hand, as he was used to do on taking
leave of her for any lengthy absence. Last of all, when he was now
a-horseback, he did turn his face to her and say:
"God have you in His keeping, Dona Maria!" and so rode forth with his
company behind him.
Soon as ever she thought her husband's troop to be gotten forth of the
walls, the Princess bade her Nurse summon the Duke d'Andria to her. The
old woman besought her to defer a meeting that might easily be cause of
such sore calamity.
"My dove," she cried, falling on her knees, her hands uplifted in
supplication, "receive not the Duke to-day! All night long I heard the
Prince's men grinding swords. Yet another thing, my flower of flowers,
the good brother that cometh day by day to our kitchen to seek his dole
of bread, hath but now overset a salt-cellar of salt with the sleeve of
his gown. Give your lover a little repose, little one. Your pleasure
will be all the greater to have him again presently, and he will love
you all the better for the respite."
But Dona Maria d'Avalos said:
"Nurse, an if he be not here in one quarter of an hour, I will send you
back home to your brethren in the mountains."
And when the Duke d'Andria was by her side she did welcome him with an
exceeding great joy.
"My Lord," cried she, "this will be a good day for us, and the night
better still. I shall keep you till the dawn."
And straightway did they exchange betwixt them an host of kisses and
fond caresses. Presently, after doffing their clothes, they gat them to
bed, and held each the other close embraced so long that evening found
them yet pressed in each other's arms. Then, for that they were sore
hungered, Dona Maria drew forth of her marriage chest a pasty, dried
conserves, and a flask of wine, the which she had been heedful to lay by
therein.
After the twain had eaten and drunk their fill, playing the while all
sorts of pretty plays, the moon rose and did look in so friendly at the
window that they were fain to wish her welcome. So they went forth upon
the balcony, and there, breathing the freshness and softness of the
night, did watch the fireflies dancing in the dark bushes. All were
still save only the shrilling of the insects in the grass. Then there
came a sound of footsteps along the street, and Dona Maria did
recognize the poor monk which was wont to haunt the kitchen and the
Palace courtyards, the same she had encountered one day in the flowery
path where she was a-walking with two ladies--her companions. She shut
to the window softly, and to bed again with her lover. 'Twas deep in the
night, and they were lying so, kissing and murmuring the softest
nothings ever were inspired by Love, whether at Naples or any other spot
in all the wide world, when of a sudden they caught a noise of steps
mounting the stairway and the rattle of arms; at the same time they
beheld a red glow shining through the chinks of the door. And they heard
the Nurse's voice shrieking, "Jesu Maria! I am a dead woman." The Duke
d'Andria sprang up, leapt upon his sword, and cried:
"Up, Dona Maria! We must leap forth by the window."
But, rushing to the balcony and leaning out, he saw how the street was
guarded and all bristling with pikes.
Thereupon he came back to Dona Maria, which said:
"'Tis the end of all! But know this, I do not regret aught of what I
have done, my dear, dear Lord!"
And he made answer:
"Well and good then, and so be it!" and did haste to don his trunks.
Cracking and crunching under the mighty blows struck by them outside,
the door was meantime a-trembling, and the panels began to gape.
He spake again and said:
"Fain would I know who hath betrayed and sold us thus."
At the instant he was seeking his shoon, the one half of the door gave
way, and a troop of men, bearing arms and torches, threw themselves into
the chamber. The Prince of Venosa was in their midst, shouting: "Have at
the traitor! Kill! Kill!"
Lustily did three swordsmen attack the Duke, but he set him in front of
the bed, where was Dona Maria, and made valiant stand against the
caitiffs.
Six men were there in all, led on by the Prince, being of his bosom
friends every one or his own varlets. Albeit blinded by the dazzle of
the torches, the Duke d'Andria did contrive to parry several thrusts,
and gave back some shrewd blows himself. But catching his foot in the
platters lying on the floor, with the remains of the pasty and
conserves, he fell over backward. Finding himself on his back, a sword's
point at his throat, he did seize the blade in his left hand; the man,
snatching it back, cut off three of his fingers, and the sword was bent.
Then, as the Duke d'Andria was heaving forward his shoulders to rise,
one of the fellows struck him a blow over the head which did break in
the bones of his skull. At this all six did hurl them upon him, and slew
him, lunging with such savage haste they did wound each other.
Whenas the thing was done, the Prince of Venosa bade them stand quietly
aside; and marching upon Dona Maria, which till now had tarried still
beside the bed, he drave her before his sword's point into the corner of
the chamber where was the marriage chest. And there, holding her at bay,
he did hiss in her face one word:
"_Puttana!_" (Harlot!)
Shamed by reason of her nakedness, she went to drag to her some of the
bedclothes, which were hanging over the bedside. But he stayed her with
a thrust of his sword, which did graze her white side.
Then, leaning against the wall, hands and arms held up to veil her eyes,
she stood waiting.
The other never left off crying:
"_Puttaccia! Puttaccia!_" (Whore! Whore!)
Then, forasmuch as he did yet tarry, and slew her not, she was afraid.
He saw that she was afraid, and said gleefully:
"You are afraid!"
But pointing her finger at the dead body of the Duke d'Andria, she made
answer:
"Fool! what think you I can have to fear now?"
And, to make a seeming of being no more terrified, she sought to recall
a song-tune she had sung many a time as a girl, and began humming the
same, or rather hissing it, betwixt her teeth.
The Prince, furious to see how she defied him, did now prick her with
his point in the belly, crying out:
"_Ah! Sporca-puttaccia!_" (Fie! Filthy trull!) Exultant, she stayed her
singing, and said:
"Sir, 'tis two years sithence I have been to confession."
At this word the Prince of Venosa bethought him how that, an if she died
and were damned, she might return by night and drag him down to Hell
along with her. He asked her:
"Will you not have a Confessor?"
She did ponder an instant, then shaking her head:
"'Tis useless. I cannot save my soul. I repent me not. I cannot, and I
will not, repent. I love him! I love him! Let me die in his arms."
With a quick movement, she did thrust the sword aside, threw her on the
bleeding corse of the Duke d'Andria, and lay clipping her dead lover in
her arms.
Seeing her so, the Prince of Venosa did lose what patience he had kept
till then, to the end he might not kill her ere he had made her suffer.
He drave his blade through her body. She cried, "Jesu!" rolled over,
sprang to her feet, and after a little shudder that shook her every
limb, fell to the floor dead.
He struck her several blows more in the belly and bosom; then said to
his varlets:
"Go throw these two pieces of carrion at the foot of the Great
Staircase, and open wide the Palace doors, that men may note my
vengeance at the same time as the insult done mine honour."
He bade strip the lover's corse bare like the other.
The men did as they were bidden. And all the day the bodies of the Duke
d'Andria and Dona Maria lay naked at the bottom of the steps. The
passers-by drew near to see them. And the news of the bloody deed being
spread about the city, a great press of curious onlookers came crowding
before the Palace. Some said, "Lo! a good deed well done!" Others, and
these the more part, at sight of so lamentable a spectacle, were filled
with ruth. Yet durst they not openly commiserate the Prince's victims,
for fear of evil handling by his armed dependents, which were set to
guard the bodies. Young men gazed at the Princess's corse, for to
discover the traces of that beauty which had been her undoing, while the
little children would be expounding one to the other the meaning of that
they saw.
Dona Maria lay stretched on her back. The lips were drawn back,
displaying the teeth in a ghastly smile. Her eyes stood wide open, the
whites only showing. Six wounds were upon her, three in the belly, which
was greatly swollen, two in the bosom, one in the neck. The last had
bled profusely, and the dogs kept fawning up to lick it.
Towards nightfall, the Prince bade set torches of resin, like as on days
of festival, in the bronze rings fixed in the Palace walls, and eke
kindle great fires in the Courtyard, to the end all men might see the
criminals plain. At midnight, a pious widow brought coverings and spread
the same over the dead bodies. But, by the Prince's commandment, these
were incontinent torn away again.
The Ambassador of Spain informed of the unseemly treatment meted to a
lady of the Spanish house of Avalos, came in person urgently to entreat
the Prince of Venosa to stay these outrages, which did insult the noble
memory of the Duke de Pescara, uncle to Dona Maria, and offend in their
tomb so many great Captains of whose blood the said lady was descended.
But he withdrew after profiting naught by his intercession; and writ a
letter thereanent to his Catholic Majesty. The poor bodies were left
shamefully exposed as before. Toward the latter end of the night, the
curious having ceased to come any more, the guards were withdrawn.
Then a Dominican monk, which had all the day lurked about the great
doors, did slip within the vestibule by the smoky light of the dying
torches, crept to the steps where Dona Maria lay, and threw himself on
her corse.
BONAPARTE AT SAN MINIATO
TO ARMAND GENEST
BONAPARTE AT SAN MINIATO
_Quand, simple citoyen, soldat d'un peuple libre,
Aux bords de l'Eridan, de l'Adige et du Tibre,
Foudroyant tour a tour quelques tyrans pervers,
Des nations en pleurs, sa main brisait les fers...._
(Marie-Joseph Chenier, _La Promenade_.)[1]
_Napoleon, apres son expedition de Livourne, se rendant a
Florence, coucha a San Miniato chez un vieil abbe Buonaparte...._
(_Memorial de Saint-Helene_, par le comte de Las Cases, reimpression
de 1823, 1824, t. I'er, p. 149.)[2]
"_Je fus sur le soir a San Miniato. J'y avais un vieux
chanoine de parent...._"
(_Memoires du docteur F. Antommarchi, sur les derniers moments de
Napoleon_ 1825, t. I'er p. 155.)[3]
[Footnote 1: "When, a plain citizen, soldier of a free people, by the
banks of the Eridanus, the Adige and the Tiber, blasting with his
lightnings one after another recalcitrant tyrants, his hand brake the
fetters of the nations that wept...."]