An unprotected Princess.—Match-making, and its penalties.—A ladies
man for a Castellano.—A woman's weakness.—And a woman's political
economy.—Wanted, by the city of Forlì, a Jew; any Israelite,
possessing sufficient capital, will find this, &c. &c.—The new
Pope, Alexander VI.—The value of a Jubilee.—Troublous times in
Forlì.—Alliances made, and broken.—Catherine once more a widow.
Our Catherine now found herself in exactly that position, which in
her age and country had led to so many historical tragedies, and
brought about the ruin of so many similarly situated princesses, and
the misery of the hapless people subjected to them. A beautiful widow
of six-and-twenty, holding one rich principality in her own right,
and a second still more valuable, as regent for a son only nine years
of age, was infallibly a mark for all the princely fortune-hunters,
and ambitious intriguers throughout Italy. Every degree and mode of
interference from marriage to murder was likely to be brought to bear
by greedy nobles and unprincipled brother sovereigns against one of
the weaker sex so circumstanced. But Catherine hardly deserves to be
described by such a phrase. If her sex marked her place among the
feebler portion of mankind, the virility of her character claimed a
high standing for her among the strongest of the masters of creation.
And she felt, and showed herself perfectly capable of standing alone,
and holding her own and her son's inheritance by her sole unaided
prudence and energy.
[Sidenote: JUST THE THING!]
In the early days of her widowhood a report arose that a marriage[121]
was in contemplation between the Countess of Forlì and Antonio
Ordelaffi, pretender to that principality. His brother, Francesco, was
dead, and he was now the sole representative of the old dynasty, which
had ruled Forlì for so many centuries. The report of the probability
of such a marriage arose, doubtless, from the manifest advantages
derivable from such an arrangement. It has been seen how sure a thorn
in the sides of the Riarii was the existence of this exiled but
unforgotten family; how insecure and uneasy it rendered their hold of
the principality, and how the never-ceasing intrigues and incitements
of the pretenders continually kept party jealousies and hatred alive,
and ever and anon burst into insurrectionary attempts, necessitating
constant vigilance and severe punishments, themselves the cause of
further disaffection.
All this unhappy state of things might be remedied, the unfortunate
heir of a long line of princes restored to his inheritance, and a
beautiful young widow very satisfactorily mated with a noble and not
undistinguished cavalier (for such Antonio Ordelaffi had become as a
_Condottiere_ in the service of Venice), and everything made pleasant
to all parties by this match. So thought the gossips, patrician and
plebeian, in the cities of Romagna; and, accordingly, settled the
matter to their own satisfaction, as gossips are wont to do in similar
cases.
So much appearance of authenticity had the report assumed, and so
completely had the good folk of Forlì taken for granted the truth of
it, that in order not to be found behind-hand in their preparations
for the festivities to ensue, when the great event should be announced,
many families had prepared liveries and streamers, with the united
colours of the Ordelaffi and Riarii, and staves in great numbers,
similarly painted, for carrying in processions. And it was the chance
discovery of some of these well-intended preparations, that first
revealed to the Countess the plans which her lieges of Forlì had taken
on themselves to make in her behalf.
Catherine was furious! Who had dared to speak, or to believe when
spoken, so gratuitous and detestable a calumny? What had the world,
and especially her own subjects, ever seen in her conduct to make them
think it possible that she should sacrifice the prospects of her son
to any considerations of her own tranquillity? What! she a Sforza,
unite herself to an Ordelaffi, and for fear of him! She need to seek a
protector, and find him in the vagabond heir of a house, whose weakness
and misconduct had deservedly lost them their dominion! She would show
them that her own hand was strong enough to hold the rein, ay, and the
whip as well, in her City of Forlì. And now, what fool had been guilty
of the insolent absurdity of painting these sticks with colours so
offensively chosen?
Whereupon, cringes into the presence-chamber of the angry dame, shaking
in his shoes, and with many a profound obeisance, an old acquaintance
of our own—no other than gossiping Messer Leon Cobelli, musician,
painter, ballet master, and historian! He, in his capacity of painter,
while dreaming of festivals to be arranged, enjoyed, and afterwards
chronicled by himself, had mingled those tints in so detestable
mesalliance.
[Sidenote: LEON COBELLI.]
Off to the gate-house prison with him, there to meditate on the
difference between scribbling his history, when his lords had enacted
it, and presuming to arrange it for them beforehand.
So poor Cobelli is forthwith marched off in high dudgeon, and had
awful thoughts,[122] in his anger, of condemning his liege lady to
sudden and irreparable forfeiture of an immortality of glory by burning
his chronicle of her deeds; but the reflection, that in that case
he, Leon Cobelli, ballet-master to the court, would himself share in
the condemnation, happily arrested his hand before the sacrifice was
consummated.
So thoroughly did the high and haughty dame impress on the frightened
Forlìvesi the expediency of holding their tongues and not opening
too wide their eyes in respect to matters of such delicate nature,
and so much above them, that when, not long afterwards, there really
was somewhat of the sort to talk about, such a discreet silence was
observed, as almost to have defeated the detective investigations of
Mnemosyne herself.
Tommaso Feo was, as has been seen, governor of the citadel of Forlì
for Catherine, having been placed there by herself on a very critical
occasion. It has been seen, also, how well and zealously he acquitted
himself of his trust in the difficult circumstances following upon
the assassination of the Count. He came from Savona, Girolamo's
birthplace, and had been for many years a faithful follower of the
fortunes of the Riarii. Now, this Tommaso Feo had a brother, Giacomo,
not yet twenty years old, a remarkably handsome youth, "very tall,
excellently well-made, of a beautiful pink complexion, courteous and
pleasant with all, both high and low, and well skilled in all manly and
knightly exercises."[123] This well-favoured youth had been looked on
with a very approving eye by the high and puissant dame, his sovereign
lady. And the circumstance of her having, a short time previously,
given a lady, who was a relative of her own, in marriage to Tommaso
Feo, his brother, made it seem natural that both the young men should
be admitted more freely into the society of the Countess than might
otherwise have been expected.
Before long, however, the young and beautiful widow determined on
taking a step, which,—as is frequently the case with the steps taken
by young and beautiful widows,—caused no little raising of the
eyebrows, and some very cautiously whispered talk among the citizens
of Forlì. This was nothing less startling than the substitution of the
young and handsome bachelor brother, for the tried and trusty elder
brother, in the high and important post of _Castellano_ of Ravaldino.
But high-handed and strong as Catherine was, we have already seen
enough of the ways of these governors of strong fortresses in general,
and of stout Tommaso Feo in particular, to make it very intelligible
that the lady did not see fit to proceed to her intent by simply
ordering Tommaso to walk out, and Giacomo to walk in to Ravaldino. A
good _Castellano's_ duty was to hold his castle, as a good terrier's
duty is to hold the throat of the creature he has been bidden to
attack; and it often happens that the master of the staunch beast
cannot induce him to relinquish his gripe. The question was, before a
word had transpired of the proposed change, how to get staunch Tommaso
out of his place of strength.
[Sidenote: CASTELLANO LURED OUT.]
With this view, the crafty lady gave a fête in her gardens outside
the city, to which the Governor was courteously invited. In this
little excursion outside the walls, there was little to excite the
_Castellano's_ suspicions. He could leave the communication between
the fortress and the city safely closed behind him, come out from
the citadel into the open country, and return to it at pleasure by
the same road. But what is man's wit worth against a woman's wiles!
In the gardens, no arm would serve Catherine to lean on save that of
her trusty _Castellano_. They spent a charming day; "tasted together
various fruits;" and when his beautiful sovereign declared herself at
the end of the day's pleasure so tired that he must give her his arm
as far as the palace, what mortal _Castellano_ could do otherwise than
fall into the trap so cleverly baited.
If such there were, good Tommaso Feo was not the man. Pleased and
flattered, he led the fair traitress through the little city to her
palace, and was no sooner within its walls than he was tapped on his
shoulder, and bade to deliver up his sword, and consider himself
a prisoner! This having been satisfactorily done, Madama,—as the
chroniclers from the period of her first husband's death almost
invariably call her,—summoned the conscious Giacomo to her presence,
and stated, that though nothing had occurred to diminish her high
esteem for his brother, circumstances made it desirable that she should
change her _Castellano_—that Tommaso would for the present return
to his native Savona, quitting the city with a guard of honour as a
mark of her high consideration; and that she wished him to accept the
vacated post.
Giacomo, we are told, accepted his preferment with well-acted modesty
and surprise, and Tommaso appears to have become easily reconciled to
the arrangement, as he is not long after found back again in Forlì, in
the service of the Countess.
These events took place in the summer of 1490; and there is reason[124]
to suppose that the new _Castellano_ had then been his liege lady's
husband for several months. The marriage, though a perfectly legitimate
one in the eyes of the Church, was, and remained a rigidly guarded
secret; not only because it was a wholly unavowable mesalliance, but
because according the public law of the Holy Roman Empire, Catherine's
second marriage would have entailed deprivation of the guardianship of
her children.
It was, as may be supposed, by no means a prudent thing even to allude
to a secret of such importance. A poor ignorant artisan, who had been
overheard saying, that somebody had told him, that somebody else had
said that their lady had married her _Castellano_, was forthwith
summoned to the presence of the Countess, who, after a few words
spoken with a severity which half frightened him out of his senses,
ordered him at once to be put on the rack: from which torture, says the
historian, he barely escaped with his life. We may be very sure, that
few words were ever whispered even in Forlì on so dangerous a subject.
And the reverend biographer, who relates the above incident, seems as
if he hardly felt safe two hundred years afterwards in meddling with
such state secrets, remarking apologetically, that he merely notifies
the fact, that his readers may not think any ill when they at a later
period meet with mention of a son of Catherine's named Giacomo, born
somewhere about this time.
[Sidenote: A FORTUNATE YOUTH.]
In truth, the Forlì public had little cause to pay any attention
to this portion of the private life of their sovereign. For in all
respects as far as regarded them, and as far as the world could
see, Catherine was still sovereign Countess, and Giacomo Feo still
_Castellano_ of Ravaldino, and nothing more. All that could be done
for her young husband without lifting him from the rank of a subject,
Catherine delighted in accomplishing. Thus, we find her obtaining for
him from her brother at Milan some order of chivalry, all the insignia
of which were duly sent by the hands of proper heraldic personages
from that splendid court. The noblest knights of the most conspicuous
families in Forlì invested the young man, one with cloak, another with
collar, and another with spurs; and there were grand festivities, and
Catherine was, it is written, in the highest spirits.
Her new marriage, we are especially told, in no wise made her
neglectful of her duties towards her children, and especially that of
constantly attending to their education, and superintending it in a
great measure personally. She took infinite pains in seeking for the
best masters, and in ascertaining for what career each of her sons was
by nature most adapted. We learn further, without surprise, that she
was a careful and prudent, rather than an indulgent mother; and find
her acquiring the praise of contemporary writers by "never caressing
her children," and never allowing them to come into her presence, save
in full state costume, and requiring them to maintain a grave and
decorous demeanor to match![125]
For the rest, public affairs go on much the same as during the lifetime
of Girolamo. The conspiracies are hatched and detected much as usual.
That troublesome Ordelaffi knows no middle course between love and
murder. As Catherine would not listen to him on the former topic, he is
continually plotting to compass the latter. Now in Imola, now in Forlì,
and now in some one of the outlying fortresses of the small state,
some little conspiracy is continually being discovered and crushed by
the lady's prudence and vigilance. A few traitors, found guilty of
being in correspondence with the pretender, are hung, a few others
banished,—and then things are quiet for a few months.
As usual, the finance question is found to be the most difficult and
abstruse part of the whole science of governing. The court of Forlì
is maintained, we hear, on as magnificent a scale as that of many
larger states. And money must be had. But Madama is a good manager;
and strives much to find some means of making a full treasury not
absolutely incompatible with a fair show of prosperity among the
tax-payers; not, unhappily, with much success.
Once Madama thought she had found the Aladdin's lamp at last. The great
Via Emilia, high road from Milan, Bologna, Venice, and all Germany, to
Rome, runs through our towns of Imola and Forlì. Suppose we put up, as
we have a clear right to do, a turnpike-gate,—say two toll-bars,—one
at either end of our territory, and so fleece travellers to the most
needful replenishing of our own coffers, and every way desirable
lightening of the burdens of our faithful subjects. How strange never
to have thought of it before!
[Sidenote: THE NEW TOLL-BARS.]
So the new toll-bars are forthwith erected; but to the great surprise
of Madama and her counsellors with very much less result than had been
anticipated; with little other result indeed than a few broken heads
and bloody noses, arising from the scuffles of the toll-bar keepers
with violent travellers who decline paying the new imposition. This was
all natural enough; but the strange thing is, that the traffic most
notably falls off. Travellers won't come to be taxed. Ducky won't come
to be killed. With a perverse cunning, most provoking, men go round
another way; some stay at home and don't go at all; and the toll-bars
barely pay the expense of their keepers. Then the Pesaro folk, whose
communications with the neighbouring towns are much interrupted by the
Lady Catherine's new toll-bars, take it into their heads to retaliate,
by seizing every Forlì man who ventures to show his face within their
jurisdiction, weighing him publicly on a steel yard by the road-side,
and taxing him so much a pound, as if he were hogsflesh or mutton, to
the great amusement and scoffing of the cities round about, and the
infinite scandal and discomfiture of the men of Forlì.
But Catherine was a wise princess, and in a very short time got a
lesson in finance from her new scheme, which some other princes have
failed to learn from the experience of centuries; and the unsuccessful
toll-bars were quietly removed.
Another somewhat curious matter, in which we find Madama engaged about
this time, was the providing Forlì, both on her own behalf and that of
her subjects, with one of the most necessary conveniences of civilised
life, of which the city had been destitute since the riots at the time
of the Count's death. The banks and pawnshops of two wealthy Jews had
been then broken into and pillaged, and their owners frightened into
abandoning the city. And now if a Christian had need of a little ready
cash, where was he to look for it? Money absolutely needed, and not a
Jew within hail! Madama felt that this was a state of things calling
for immediate remedy. So special overtures were made to a wealthy
Israelite of Bologna to come and settle in Forlì. The Jew admitted the
urgent necessity of the case, but bearing in mind recent events, deemed
it no more than common prudence to stipulate, that an instrument should
be drawn up and executed in due legal form, by which the sovereign,
state, and municipality, of Forlì, should be bound to indemnify him for
any loss to his capital or property that might occur from revolution or
other violence. This was promptly acceded to; the Jew was installed in
Forlì, to the great joy of its ever-orthodox, but often out-at-elbows,
Christian population; and, by Madama's wise provision, her lieges could
once again get their little bills done as heretofore.
Meantime, Innocent VIII. died; and in August of the same year, 1492,
the Sacred College announced "_Urbi et Orbi_" that they had been
inspired by the Holy Spirit to elect as Heaven's Vicegerent on earth,
the Cardinal Roderigo Borgia; one, who may be safely assumed, without
any careful scanning of the members of the college, to have been
the worst of those offered to their choice, inasmuch as history has
assigned to him the portentous pre-eminence of being the worst of
the successors of St. Peter. English readers have no idea what this
Pope, Alexander VI., was; and no English page can dare to tell them.
Studious men, who feel, that, inasmuch as despite all change of time
and circumstance, similar causes will, in the moral world as certainly
as in the physical world, produce similar effects, it is therefore
fitting that such cesspools of abominations should be sounded by those
who for the sake of the general health ought to be conversant with
every form of disease,—these may in the cynical unblushing dead Latin
of Burckhardt the diarist, look on the loathsome picture of life in the
Vatican under this Father of Christendom. For others let it suffice,
that this man, chosen by the Church by infallible inspiration, for the
infallible guidance of Christian souls, was such, that no human soul
could be in communication with his without deep injury and degradation.
[Sidenote: ALEXANDER VI.]
This man, as Cardinal under Sixtus IV., had been his vice-chancellor,
and a steady adherent of the Riarii. He was the sponsor chosen by the
young Count and Countess to hold at the font their first-born son. And
the friendship which existed, and was thus specially marked, between
them and such a man as the Cardinal Borgia, cannot but be felt to have
the force of unfavourable evidence in our estimate of them.
Catherine, however, considered the news of Borgia's elevation to be
most important to her interests, and highly satisfactory. Two envoys on
behalf of Forlì, and two on behalf of Imola, were despatched to Rome to
compliment the new Pope on his election, and offer the homage of the
Countess and her son. Being very well received by his Holiness, they
begged that he would grant that a Jubilee, with plenary absolution,
might be held for three successive years in two churches of the
Franciscans in Forlì, which was graciously accorded, with the condition
however that a fresh bull should be applied for each year; which was
only laying a small tax on the profits of the Jubilee. Such a grant
was not uncommon. But the result of the three years' speculation, as
recorded by the Forlì historians, is curious. The first year brought
2500 lire, with which the monks of one church built a cloister, and
the nuns of the other put a new roof to their chapel, and newly fitted
out a miraculous Virgin. The second year's produce was almost nothing,
because the brief enabling the convents to absolve from homicide did
not arrive in time. And the third year, they got only 184 lire, because
the Apostolic Court, having then more important matters in hand, again
neglected to send the necessary brief in due time.
Up to this period the life of Catherine has been passed altogether in
that good time,—those halcyon days for Italy described by Guicciardini
in the opening of his great work, and marked by him as coming to an end
in the fatal year, 1494. To readers more conversant with the regular
well-ordered course of life in the nineteenth century than with that
of the fifteenth, it may seem, that the little magic-lanthorn-like
peeps at the men and things of that old time, offered to them in the
foregoing pages, can hardly be deemed samples of that happy condition
so regretfully commemorated by the great historian. Murders of princes,
and awards of torture and death to their conspiring subjects, recurring
in oscillations of pendulum-like regularity,—civil war in the streets
of Rome, and monstrous corruption in her palaces,—lawless violence
of the law-making classes, met by continually successful evasion of
the law by those for whose oppression rather than protection it was
intended: all this does not represent to our ideas a happy state of
society.
But Guicciardini looks back to these days from amid the misfortunes
of a far more disastrous period. The good old days,—when Italian
throats were throttled only by Italian hands; when the tyrants were
Italian tyrants not too strong to be occasionally knocked on the
head by Italian rebels; when the wealth extorted from the people by
splendid princes was at least scattered among them again by their
splendour; when, in a word, Italy, manage it as they might, was for the
Italians,—were sighed for as a golden age in that iron period, when
the barbarian from beyond the Alps had come down upon them.
[Sidenote: AN UNPLEASANT POSITION.]
Charles VIII., of France, was the second Attila, who headed an inroad
of barbarians, from whose gripe on some part of her body, soft Italy
has never since been able to shake herself free. That ambitious Prince
undertook to make good certain old standing genealogical claims to the
sovereignty of Naples, long since advanced by France; and marched into
Italy with an army for that purpose in the summer of 1494. It would
lead us too far away into the great high-road of the history of that
time, if we were to attempt to trace an intelligible picture of the
dissensions and jealousies among the princes of Italy, which made that
moment appear peculiarly opportune for the prosecution of his claims.
We have only to deal with the immediate result of the great calamity to
Forlì and its Countess.
Those rich alluvial flats of Romagna were capital fighting ground, and
lay besides just on the high road of the French troops southwards. And
on the 18th of August the main body of the Neapolitan troops were at
Cesena, about twelve miles to the south; and five days later the French
troops were at Bologna, some thirty miles to the north of Forlì. The
little state found itself in a sufficiently dangerous position under
any circumstances. But the situation was rendered yet more difficult by
the necessity of taking one or the other side, when there were strong
reasons for taking neither. The Duke of Milan, Catherine's brother,
and her uncle "Ludovico il Moro," who, in fact, held the power of Milan
in his hands, were allies of the French king. On the other hand, the
Pope had allied himself with the King of Naples; and Forlì was held as
a fief of the Church; and all Catherine's sympathies, and her Riario
connections,—among whom were two cardinals high in the confidence of
the Pontiff,—drew her towards the party taken by the court of Rome.
The decision was difficult; and Catherine was long in deciding.
Repeated embassies were seen in those days arriving from the hostile
camps, and departing without having obtained the promise they wished.
Meantime, Madama was busily engaged in preparing, as best she might,
for the storm which was sure to burst over Forlì, whichever side
she might decide on supporting. Men were sent throughout the whole
territory warning the peasants of the plains to leave their homes, and
betake themselves[126] with such property as was moveable to places of
safety. The time of vintage was close at hand, and it was hard to leave
the fruit of the year's labour to be gathered by others. But to have
remained would only have been to lose all that might have been moved,
and probably life itself, as well as that which they were compelled
to leave behind them. So, throughout the length and breadth of the
plains around Forlì, long trains of the cultivators of the soil, with
their families and cattle, might be seen moving into the shelter of the
over-crowded cities, or towards the comparatively safe recesses of the
Apennine.
At length, after much vacillation and long bargaining, Madama declared
herself the ally of the King of Naples. The principal conditions
were, that both Naples and Rome should guarantee the defence of her
states; and that Octavian, her eldest son, then seventeen years old,
should receive the rank of General in the allied army with a large
stipend.[127]
[Sidenote: IMPORTANCE OF HER FRIENDSHIP.]
The historians of Forlì, and especially Burriel, Catherine's
biographer, insist much on the pause in the movements of the two
armies, while encamped respectively at Bologna and at Cesena, while
either party strove by repeated efforts to obtain her alliance. It
would not be credible, Burriel remarks, that the generals of two
armies, each of about 16,000 men, should have lost so much time,
and taken so much trouble to secure the friendship of so small
a principality, if all the chroniclers did not accord in their
clear statements, that such was the case. And they point out,
with much municipal pride, the high position and authority which
these circumstances indicate Catherine to have attained among her
contemporaries. The observation is a fair one. And the evident
importance attached by both the contending parties to the friendship
of a state so entirely unimportant on the score of its power, is very
remarkable.
The alliance with Naples, which Madama had been so slow to form, she
was very quick to break. A few successes on the part of the French seem
to have caused a greater degree of discouragement among their enemies
than was reasonable. The Pope recalled his troops from Romagna, and
the Duke of Calabria began to draw off his forces southwards. In these
circumstances, which would seem to have left Forlì exposed to certain
destruction, and to have been totally at variance with the conditions
that had been stipulated for its protection, Catherine sought to secure
the safety of her little state by suddenly changing sides and becoming
at the shortest possible notice the friend of the winning party. The
measure was not wholly successful: for the Duke of Calabria in retiring
southwards, angry as he might well be with the Countess, ravaged the
country as he passed to the utmost of his power.
The French troops remained in the neighbourhood of Forlì as friends
till the 23rd of November, at which time they proceeded to cross the
Apennine to join King Charles, who had arrived at Florence on the 18th
of that month. They were friends, but friends whose departure was seen
with no small satisfaction; for the difficulty and cost of feeding
them, and inducing them to abstain from helping themselves had been
extreme.
During this time of trouble and continual anxiety, Giacomo Feo had been
governor-general of Catherine's states. He seems to have efficiently
seconded the dexterous management, by which Catherine succeeded in
bringing her little state through this critical time in an only
half-ruined condition; and Madama, determined, says Burriel, not to let
such an opportunity as having these French generals at Forlì slip away
without making something out of it, obtained by their means the rank
and title of baron for her General and husband from the King of France.
The young General was, we are told, beyond measure elated at the
possession of this coveted preferment; and Madama was as pleased to
have gratified him with it. But, it would seem, that the gift was a
fatal one.
[Sidenote: MURDER OF FEO.]
On the 27th of August, 1495, Catherine and her sons and Feo had gone
out of Forlì on a hunting excursion. The party were returning to the
city in the evening; Madama, and some of her sons, were in a carriage,
Feo was riding behind them on horseback. Now, seven[128] citizens
of Imola and Forlì, some nobles, some priests, and some peasants,
had sworn together that they would that day kill the favourite. So
they posted themselves at a spot within the city walls, by which the
Court party were sure to pass on their return; and there, letting the
carriage with Catherine and her sons pass on unmolested, they stabbed
the unfortunate young husband with a pike through the body, so that
with one cry he fell dead.
It is of no interest to chronicle the obscure names of these assassins.
But it is worth remarking that most, if not all of them, were
personally known to their victim. And this is a circumstance, that
in almost every case characterises these medieval assassinations of
Italian princes. The murderers are not politically fanatical regicides,
who for the working out of some theory or hope, salve their consciences
with the plea of necessity for the removal of a man whom they have
perhaps never seen, and certainly never known. They are men in the
habit of daily intercourse with him, and strike with all the virulence
of personal hate. The victim apostrophises them by their Christian
names, not unconscious in all probability of the items in the score
thus finally settled.
In the case of this unfortunate young Feo, as far as can be judged[129]
from the scanty notices of the provincial historians, his death seems
to have been due to the jealousy occasioned by the reiterated honours
showered upon him. This obscure young man, a stranger from Savona, some
place, they say, away beyond Genoa, is brought here, raised above all
the ancient nobility of the country, made Cavaliere, Conte, Castellano,
Governor-General; and now not content with all that, must needs be a
French Baron too! This last preferment seems from some feeling to have
been the most irksome and most odious of all to the Forlìvesi. Come
what might, they would not be lorded over by a French Baron!
And thus, at the age of thirty-three, Catherine was for the second time
after five years of marriage, the widow of a murdered husband.