whatever of any interest in these extracts, with the exception of a couple of answers given to the examining magistrate by Beatrice, to the effect that she could not have given anything or made any promises to one of the bravos who did the deed, because she was kept as a prisoner under lock and key by her father. This statement was no doubt true, and we shall see presently what was the cause of this treatment. Not that it can be doubted that she was treated with cruel harshness and severity by her father. There is not the smallest doubt that he was a monster of lawless violence, savagery, and profligacy. No doubt he had rendered himself intolerable to his wife and children. But, once again, there is no evidence whatsoever in support of the accusation which Farinacco invented in the hope of saving his client's life. He also defended Bernardo, whose life was saved. And the defence invented for him was equally devoid of foundation in truth; it went to make out that he was of weak intellect. But Signor Bertolotti produces abundant evidence from documents having reference to facts of his subsequent life, proving that he was by no means afflicted in that way.

As regards the attempt that has been made by various writers to insinuate that the Cenci family were treated with less than justice from a desire on the part of the officials of the Papal Government to lay hands on the Cenci property, it may be observed, as Signor Bertolotti points out, that the fact that all the criminals were permitted to make wills disposing of their property is hardly consistent with this supposition. Such permission, indeed, would seem to have been a special relaxation of the rigour of the law; for, according to the legislation then in vigour, all the property of condemned felons was confiscated to the State.

Beatrice Cenci, however, made a will, which has been discovered by Signor Bertolotti still existing in its integrity among the archives of a Roman notary; and to this document we must now call attention. It would have been desirable to print it in extenso; but it is very long, and would occupy too much space. We must content ourselves, therefore, with endeavouring to give the gist of it in as few words as may be.

'I, Beatrice Cenci, daughter of Francesco Cenci, Roman, of happy memory (!), being sound of body, sense, and intellect, knowing that I must die, for the sake of preventing disorder after my death, make my last will and testament by me subscribed as follows. And beginning with my soul, I with all humility recommend it to the most glorious Mother, to God, to the seraphic Father St. Francis, and to all the court of heaven; and I will that my body should be buried in the church of

St. Pietro Montorio, to which church I leave for my burial an hundred

crowns.'

She also bequeaths to the same church three thousand crowns for the building of the wall which supports the road up to that church, and for the celebration of a daily mass for ever for the repose of her soul; the application of the money to be under the control of Fra Andrea, her confessor, a friar of that convent. She leaves to thirty-one different churches and religious bodies 1,750 crowns for the saying of 3,240 masses for her soul. And it is observable that she estimates the price of the masses very differently. Thus the friars of the Araceli Convent are expected to say three hundred masses for one hundred crowns, whereas to those of the Convent of St. Bartholomew fifty crowns are assigned for the saying of one hundred masses. Legacies are left to each of seven basilicas of Rome; but these fifty crowns each are supposed to be sufficient to pay for fifty masses only. She further leaves 14,100 crowns to sundry persons, mainly monks and nuns, and almost entirely in trust for the portioning of poor girls in marriage. All the conditions and contingencies to which these bequests were or might become subject are most minutely provided for and regulated. The Seraphic Company of the Sacred Stigmata of the Seraphical Father St. Francis' is named as her residuary legatee.

To one passage of the will, however, creating a secret trust, the reader's attention must be more particularly called. It runs as follows:

:

'Also I bequeath to Madonna Chaterina de Santis, widow, who now lives with the Signora Margharita Sarocchi, 300 crowns to be placed at interest, and the interest to be given in alms according to my intention confided to her. And if the said Madonna Chaterina should die, she must transfer this legacy to other persons for the same trust purposeif, that is to say, the person to whom this alms is to be given according to my expressed intention should be then alive. For if that person should be dead, in that case the said Madonna Chaterina may dispose of principal and interest as she pleases.'

Three days after executing this will, she made a codicil directing certain variations in the will of no great moment, and bequeathing 100 crowns each to the three daughters of her mother-in-law, Lucretia, by her previous husband. This will and codicil were opened in due course a few days after her death.

But she made subsequently, two days before her death upon the scaffold, another codicil, which has never been published till Signor Bertolotti discovered it. It is of all the discoveries

he has made the most important for the substitution of a true view of the history and character of the heroine of the tragedy for that which has hitherto been received by the world. It was first brought to light in the following manner. The headless body of Beatrice Cenci had been lying in her tomb in the church of San Pietro in Montorio for five-and-thirty years, when the most illustrious and most excellent' Giulio Lanciono, Procuratore of the Fabric of St. Peter's, presented himself to the notary Colonna, asserting that it had come to his knowledge that a second codicil to the will of the late Beatrice Cenci, made on September 7, 1599, was in existence, and begging that the said notary would search for the same among the papers of his office. The notary searched accordingly; and the document in question was found, sealed as it had been when deposited in the notarial office. It was opened with all the due and legally prescribed formalities, among which was the production of the following formal attestation of the death of the testatrix, extracted by the Governor and Counsellors of the Venerable Arch-confraternity of the 'Misericordia of Florence established in Rome,' from their register, thus:

'On Friday, September 10, 1599, at two hours after sunset, notice was given that on the following morning an execution would take place in the prisons of the Tor di Nona of Corte Savelli. Accordingly, at the fifth hour after sunset, the chaplain, sacristan, and comforters* went to Corte Savelli, and there were consigned to them the following persons condemned to death, viz., the Signora Beatrice † Cenci, daughter of the late Francesco Cenci, and the Signora Lucretia Petronia, wife of the late Francesco Cenci. And at about the fifteenth hour, the ministers of justice and the said Lucretia and Beatrice, accompanied by our members in the usual manner, went to the bridge, and there on a scaffold the heads of the said Lucretia and Beatrice were cut off. the twentieth hour the body of the Lady Beatrice was consigned to the Company of the Stigmata of St. Francis, and was carried in procession with much honour to St. Pietro in Montorio, where it was buried. And to certify these things this paper shall be subscribed by our officer, and sealed with our usual seal.

'Given at our Oratory this 20th of August, 1634.

At

(Signed) MATTEO MORETTI, Proveditore della detta Venerabile Arciconfraternità della Misericordia.'

One of the recognised duties of the celebrated Florentine Misericordia (which, we see, had a branch establishment in Rome) was to attend criminals to the scaffold, administering to them ghostly consolation and the last offices of religion.

It is remarkable that this formal document names the daughter, Beatrice, before the elder woman, her stepmother.

Counting from sunset on the preceding evening.

On the outside of the sealed paper containing the codicil is an attestation in regular form, signed by Beatrice and five witnesses, of whom her brother Giacomo is one, to the effect that this is a codicil to her will, and is duly consigned to the notary sealed up, containing, as the Lady Beatrice declared, dispositions which she wishes to remain secret till after her death.

'And now,' says Signor Bertolotti, 'here are the codicils, which were not to be known while she lived, which remained unopened for many lustres after her death, and which are now brought to light 278 years afterwards, to the destruction of many romantic illusions.'

Signor Bertolotti prints the codicil in question at full length. But it is unnecessary to encumber these pages with so long a document, since the gist of it may be accurately stated in much shorter space.

From 8,000 crowns left by the will to the Company of the Stigmata, one thousand are taken to be employed thus: Five hundred are left to Signora Margherita Sarrocchi (mentioned, as may be remembered, in the former will), for her to enjoy the interest of that sum while living, the capital to go at her death to Madonna Caterina de Santis (also previously mentioned) or to others nominated by the said Caterina in case of her death for the following purposes. The other five hundred of the above-mentioned thousand are left to the said Caterina, with the obligation of using them for the 'support of a certain poor boy, according to the instructions I have verbally given her.' And at the death of the Signora Margherita the interest of the other five hundred crowns is to be employed for the same purpose. And if the said Caterina dies before the boy in question, then she is to leave the said sums to others in trust for the same purpose. But if the boy should die before the said Caterina, then the said Caterina to have the entire sum to her own uses. If the boy should come to be twenty years old, then he is to have free possession of these sums.

The codicil contains some other small bequests of no interest, besides one, somewhat significant, of fifty crowns to Anastasia, the nurse of her brother Bernardo.

On this Signor Bertolotti remarks:

'The reader will have at once understood why Beatrice used all these precautions of secrecy, consigning this codicil to a different notary, and forbidding it to be opened till after her death. The need was to provide for her own child! The nobly born girl could not bring herself to confess this her fault; but by the advice, or perhaps at the order, of her confessor, she made provision for her son, but in this

cautiously secret manner, that if possible the object of the bequest might never be known.'

It will be observed that in the reference to this same purpose in the first will the object of it is spoken of by the indeterminate phrase persona; but in the secret codicil this is changed for fanciullo (boy). And Signor Bertolotti justly remarks that, if the object of the codicil were not that which he supposes, it would be a mere trifling variation of the charitable objects of the will, which it is impossible to suppose would have been effected at such an hour with so much trouble and care.

The legal defender of Beatrice, Prospero Farinaccio, as Signor Bertolotti remarks, asserted in his defence that her father, Francesco Cenci, kept her in durance, and treated her with cruelty, with a view to constraining her to accede to his abominable wishes. It is doubtless true that she was a prisoner in her father's house, and very possibly treated with cruel harshness by her father in but too accurate accordance with all that we know of his violent, lawless, and brutal character. But there is, it may be repeated, no evidence whatever in support of the most horrible accusation against the father, which rests solely on the entirely unsupported assertion of the advocate Farinaccio, who made other certainly false statements for the same purpose. And it would seem impossible to avoid the conclusion that Beatrice was punished in her father's house for conduct which was held to be an ineffaceable blot on the honour of a noble family.

The bequest to the nurse of Bernardo, who was perfectly well able to provide for her himself, and those to the two other women named in the codicil, are, in the opinion of Signor Bertolotti, strong grounds for thinking that all three of them had been go-betweens at the time of her fault, or had assisted at the birth of her child.

'In any case,' he sums up, 'Beatrice without a mother, left in her own power at a very early age, living in a family where profligacy of every sort was rampant and habitual, and having the evil example of her father before her eyes, is more to be pitied than blamed. Who her lover was, and what became of her child, will, I think, scarcely ever be known, considering the precautions which she took in providing for the latter.'

Signor Bertolotti occupies several pages with notices, which his researches have enabled him to give, of the subsequent fortunes of Bernardo, whose life was spared, but who was condemned to be present at the horrible torture and execution of