correspondence was being overhauled at the Vatican, he was not a man to
hesitate about attempting his escape; and he would certainly not be an
easy man to catch, if he could once succeed in putting a few miles of
Campagna between himself and Rome. There was no knowing what disguise he
might not find in which to slip over the frontier; and indeed, as he
afterwards proved, he was well prepared for such an emergency.

The Cardinal did not hesitate. He had just received the fourth letter,
and if he waited any longer Del Ferice would take alarm, and slip through
his fingers. He wrote with his own hand a note to the chief of police,
ordering the immediate arrest of Ugo dei Conti del Ferice, with
instructions that he should be taken in his own house, without any
publicity, and conveyed in a private carriage to the Sant' Uffizio by men
in plain clothes. It was six o'clock in the evening when he wrote the
order, and delivered it to his private servant to be taken to its
destination. The man lost no time, and within twenty minutes the chief of
police was in possession of his orders, which he hastened to execute with
all possible speed. Before seven o'clock two respectable-looking citizens
were seated in the chief's own carriage, driving rapidly in the direction
of Del Fence's house. In less than half an hour the man who had caused so
much trouble would be safely lodged in the prisons of the Holy Office, to
be judged for his sins as a political spy. In a fortnight he was to have
been married to Donna Tullia Mayer,--and her trousseau had just arrived
from Paris.

It can hardly be said that the Cardinal's conduct was unjustifiable,
though many will say that Del Fence's secret doings were easily
defensible on the ground of his patriotism. Cardinal Antonelli had
precisely defined the situation in his talk with Anastase Gouache by
saying that the temporal power was driven to bay. To all appearances
Europe was at peace, but as a matter of fact the peace was but an armed
neutrality. An amount of interest was concentrated upon the situation of
the Papal States which has rarely been excited by events of much greater
apparent importance than the occupation of a small principality by
foreign troops. All Europe was arming. In a few months Austria was to
sustain one of the most sudden and overwhelming defeats recorded in
military history. In a few years the greatest military power in the world
was to be overtaken by an even more appalling dis