: _Essendo vero quanto scriveva facesse quello
che conveniva a cavaliere di honore!_ [Things being true as he has
written them, he is allowed to do that which is befitting a gentleman of
honor!] It was not the pope alone who proposed punishment for Violante,
for the duke had a brother, Cardinal Alfonso Caraffa, who spoke of it
continually, and finally, in the month of August, in the year 1559,
Palliano sent fifty men, with Violante's brother, the Count Aliffe, at
their head, to go to her at Gallese and put her to death. A couple of
Franciscan monks gave her what little comfort there was to be extracted
from the situation, and she received the last sacrament, though stoutly
protesting her innocence the while. Then the bandage was put over her
eyes, and her brother prepared to place about her neck the cord with
which she was to be strangled; finding it too short for the purpose, he
went into another room to get one of more suitable length. Before he had
disappeared through the doorway, Violante had pulled the bandage from
her eyes, and was asking, in the most matter-of-fact way, what the
trouble was and why he did not complete his task. With great courtesy,
he informed his sister what he was about, and a moment later returned,
tranquilly readjusted bandage and cord, and then, fitting his dagger
hilt into a loop at the back, he slowly twisted it about until the soul
of the duchess had fled. Not a harsh or hasty word was spoken, there was
no hurry and no confusion, all was done quietly and in order. The marvel
is that these highly emotional people, who are usually so sensitive to
pain, could have shown such stoical indifference to their fate.

The case of Beatrice Cenci is one of the best known in all this category
of crime, and here again is shown that sublime fortitude which cannot
fail to excite our sympathy, to some degree at least. Francesco Cenci
was a wealthy nobleman of such profligate habits and such evil ways
that he had twice been threatened with imprisonment for his crimes.
Seven children he had by his first marriage, and at his wife's death he
married Lucrezia Petroni, by whom he had no children. Francesco had no
love for his sons and daughters, and treated them with such uniform
cruelty that he soon drove from their hearts any filial affection they
may have felt for him. His conduct grew so outrageous that finally, in
desperation, his family appealed to the pope for relief, begging that
Cenci be put to death, s