There were two of the Colonna. One was Sciarra; I don't know the
name of the other. They were always fighting against the pope of
their time. [275] At last they took him and shut him up in a tower in
the Campagna, and kept him there till they had starved him to death;
and when the people found him afterwards, what do you think?--in his
extremity he had gnawed off all the tips of his fingers.
When these two Colonna found they had actually killed a Pope, they
got so frightened that they ran away to hide themselves. They ran
away to France, to Paris, and at last, when all the money they were
able to carry with them was spent, they were obliged to take a place
as stablemen in the king's palace, and they washed the carriages and
cleaned down the horses like common men. But they couldn't hide that
they were great lords; the people saw there was something different
from themselves about them, and they watched them, and saw that they
waited on each other alternately every day at table, and you could see
what great ceremony they were used to. Then other things were seen,
I forget what now, but little by little, and by one thing and another,
people suspected at last who they really were.
Then some one went and told the king of France, and he had them called
up before him.
They came just as they were, in their stable clothes, wooden shoes
[276] and all.
The king sat to receive them in a raised seat hung all round with
cloth of gold, and he said:
'Now, I know one thing. You two are hiding from justice. Who you are I
don't know exactly for certain. I believe you are the Colonna. If you
confess you are the Colonna, I will make the affair straight for you;
but, if you will not say, then I will have you shut up in prison till
I find out who you are, and what you have done.'
Then they owned that they were the Colonna, [277] and the king sent
an ambassador to the Pope that then was, and the thing was arranged,
and after a time they came back to Rome.
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