In penance for the joy he had felt on learning that Roma, not Rossi, had
assassinated the Minister, the Pope became her advocate in his own mind,
and watched for an opportunity to save her. Every day for a week
Monsignor Mario read the newspapers to the Pope that he might be fully
abreast of what occurred.
The first morning the journals merely reported the crime. The headless
one with the fearful hands had stalked over the city in the middle of
night in the shape of incarnate murder, and the citizens of Rome would
awake to hear the news with consternation, horror, and shame.
The evening journals contained obituary articles and appreciations of
the dead man's character. He was the Richelieu of Italy, the chivalrous
and devoted servant of his country, and one of the noblest figures of
the age.
"Extras" were published giving descriptions of the city under the first
effects of the terrible news. Rome was literally draped in mourning. It
was a forest of flags at half-mast. All public buildings, embassies,
cafés, and places of public amusement were closed.
The Pope was puzzled, and calling a member of his Noble Guard (it was
the Count de Raymond) he sent him out into the city to see.
When the Count de Raymond returned he told another story. The people,
while deploring the crime, were not surprised at it. Baron Bonelli had
refused to understand the wants of the nation. He had treated the people
as slaves and shed their blood in the streets. Where such opinions were
not openly expressed there was a gloomy silence. Groups could be seen
under the great lamps in the Corso reading the evening papers. Sometimes
a man would mount a chair in front of the Café Aragno and read aloud
from the latest "extra." The crowd would listen, stand a moment, and
then disperse.
Next day the journals were full of the assassin. Many things were
incomprehensible in her character, unless you approached it with the
right key. Young and with a fatal beauty, fantastic, audacious, a great
coquette, always giving out a perfume of seduction and feminine ruin,
she was one of those women who live in the atmosphere of infamous
intrigue, and her last victim had been her first friend.
Once more the Pope was puzzled, and he sent out his Noble Guard again.
The Count de Raymond returned to say that in corners of the cafés people
spoke of the Baron as a dead dog, and said that if Donna Roma had killed
him she did a good act, and God would reward her.
Parliament opened after its Easter vacation, and the Count de Raymond
was sent in plain clothes to its first sitting. The galleries and
lobbies were filled, and there was suppressed but intense excitement.
Rumour said the Government had resigned, and that the King, who was in
despair, had been unable to form another ministry. A leader of the Right
was heard to say that Donna Roma had done more for the people in a day
than the Opposition could have accomplished in a hundred years. "If
these agitators on the Left have any qualities of statesmen, now's their
time to show it," he said. But what would Parliament say about the dead
man? The President entered and took his chair. After the minutes had
been read there was a moment's silence. Not a word was uttered, not a
voice was raised. "Let us pass on to the next business," said the
President.
The assizes happened to be in session, and the opening of the trial was
reported on the following day. When the prisoner was asked whether she
pleaded guilty or not guilty, she answered guilty. The court, however,
requested her to reconsider her plea, assigned her an advocate, and went
through all the formalities of an ordinary case. A principal object of
the prosecution had been to discover accomplices, but the prisoner
continued to protest that she had none. She neither denied nor
extenuated the crime, and she acknowledged it to have been premeditated.
When asked to state her motive, she said it was hatred of the methods
adopted by the dead man to wipe out political opponents, and a
determination to send to the bar of the Almighty one who had placed
himself above human law.
The Pope sent his Noble Guard to the next day's hearing of the trial,
and when the Count de Raymond came back his eyes were red and swollen.
The beautiful and melancholy face of the young prisoner sitting behind
iron bars that were like the cage of a wild beast had made a pitiful
impression. Her calmness, her total self-abandonment, the sublime
feelings that even in the presence of a charge of murder expressed
themselves in her sweet voice, had moved everybody to tears. Then the
prosecution had been so debasing in its questions about her visits to
the Vatican and in its efforts to implicate David Rossi by means of a
letter addressed to the prison at Milan.
"But _I_ did it," the young prisoner had said again and again with
steadfast fervour, only deepening to alarm when evidence concerning the
revolver seemed to endanger the absent man.
There had been some conflicting medical evidence as to whether the death
could have been due to a pistol-shot, and certain astounding disclosures
of police corruption and prison tyranny. A judge of the Military
Tribunal had given startling proof of the Prime Minister's complicity in
an infamous case, ending with the suicide of the prisoner's man-servant
in open court, and an old Garibaldian among the people, packed away
beyond the barrier, had cried out:
"He was just a black-dyed villain, and God Almighty save us from such
another."
This laying bare of the machinery of statecraft had made a great
sensation, and even the judge on the bench, being a just man, had
lowered his eyes before the accused at the bar. As the prisoner was
taken back to prison past the Castle of St. Angelo and the Military
College, the crowds had cheered her again and again, and sitting in an
open car with a Carabineer by her side, she had looked frightened at
finding herself a heroine where she had expected to be a malefactor.
"Poor child!" said the Pope. "But who knows the hidden designs of
Providence, whether manifest in the path of His justice or His mercy?"
Next day, when the Noble Guard returned to the Vatican, he could
scarcely speak to tell his story. The trial had ended and the prisoner
was condemned. Reluctantly the judge had sentenced her to life-long
imprisonment. She had preserved the same lofty demeanour to the last,
thanked her advocate, and even the judge and jury, and said they had
taken the only true view of her act. Her great violet eyes were
extraordinarily dilated and dark, and her face was transparent as
alabaster.
"You have done right to condemn me," she said, "but God, who sees all,
will weigh my conduct in the scale of His holy justice." The entire
court was in tears.
When the time came to remove the lady the crowd ran out to see the last
of her. There was a van and a company of Carabineers, but the emotion of
the people mastered them and they tried to rescue the prisoner. This was
near the Castle of St. Angelo, and the gates being open, the military
rushed her into the fortress for safety. She was there now.
The Pope sent his Noble Guard to the Castle of St. Angelo to inquire
after the prisoner, and the young soldier brought back a pitiful tale.
Donna Roma was ill and could not be removed at present. Her nervous
system was completely exhausted and nobody could say what might not
occur. Nevertheless, she was very brave, very sweet and very cheerful,
and everybody was in love with her. The Castle was occupied by a brigade
of Military Engineers, and the Major in command was a good Catholic and
a faithful son of the Holy Father. He had lodged his prisoner in the
bright apartments that used to be the Pope's, although the prison for
persons committed by the Penal Tribunals was a dark cell in the middle
of the Maschio. She had expressed a desire to be received into the
Church, and had asked the Major to send for Father Pifferi.
"Go back and tell the Major that I will go instead," said the Pope.
"Holy Father!"
"Ask him if the secret passage between the Vatican and the Castle of St.
Angelo can still be opened up."
Count de Raymond returned to say that the Major would open it. In the
present political crisis no one could tell what a day would bring forth,
and in any case he would take the consequences.
The Noble Guard held four unopened letters in his hand. They were
addressed to the Honourable Rossi in a woman's writing, and had been
re-addressed to the Chamber of Deputies from London, Paris, and Berlin.
"An official from the post-office gave me these letters, and asked me if
I could deliver them," said the young soldier.
"My son, my son, didn't you see that it was a trap?" said the Pope. "But
no matter! Give them to me. We must leave all to the Holy Spirit."