ladder, close to the Porta San Spirito. In the very act a bullet
struck him in a vital part and he fell headlong to the earth. Benvenuto
Cellini claimed the credit of the shot, but it is more than probable
that it sped from another hand, that of Bernardino Passeri; it matters
little now, it mattered less then, as the infuriated Spaniards stormed
the walls in the face of Camillo Orsini's desperate and hopeless
resistance, yelling 'Blood and the Bourbon,' for a war-cry.

Once more the wretched Pope fled along the secret corridor with his
cardinals, his prelates and his servants; for although he might yet have
escaped from the doomed city, messengers had brought word that Cardinal
Pompeo Colonna had ten thousand men-at-arms in the Campagna, ready to
cut off his flight, and he was condemned to be a terrified spectator of
Rome's destruction from the summit of a fortress which he dared not
surrender and could hardly hope to defend. Seven thousand Romans were
slaughtered in the storming of the walls; the enemy gained all
Trastevere at a blow and the sack began; the torrent of fury poured
across Ponte Sisto into Rome itself, thousands upon thousands of
steel-clad madmen, drunk with blood and mad with the glitter of gold, a
storm of unimaginable terror. Cardinals, Princes and Ambassadors were
dragged from their palaces, and when greedy hands had gathered up all
that could be taken away, fire consumed the rest, and the miserable
captives were tortured into promising fabulous ransoms for life and
limb. Abbots, priors and heads of religious orders were treated with
like barbarity, and the few who escaped the clutches of the bloodthirsty
Spanish soldiers fell into the reeking hands of the brutal German
adventurers. The enormous sum of six million ducats was gathered
together in value of gold and silver bullion and of precious things, and
as much more was extorted as promised ransom from the gentlemen and
churchmen and merchants of Rome by the savage tortures of the lash, the
iron boot and the rack. The churches were stripped of all consecrated
vessels, the Sacred Wafers were scattered abroad by the Catholic
Spaniards and trampled in the bloody ooze that filled the ways, the
convents were stormed by a rabble in arms and the nuns were distributed
as booty among their fiendish captors, mothers and children were
slaughtered in the streets and drunken Spaniards played dice for the
daughters of honourable citizens.

From the surrounding