father. Under the influence of these considerations the pope mitigated
the severity of their prison life, and even allowed the prisoners to hope
that their lives would not be forfeited.

Amidst the general feeling of relief afforded to the public by these
favours, another tragical event changed the papal mind and frustrated all
his humane intentions. This was the atrocious murder of the Marchese di
Santa Croce, a man seventy years of age, by his son Paolo, who stabbed
him with a dagger in fifteen or twenty places, because the father would
not promise to make Paolo his sole heir. The murderer fled and escaped.

Clement VIII was horror-stricken at the increasing frequency of this
crime of parricide: for the moment, however, he was unable to take
action, having to go to Monte Cavallo to consecrate a cardinal titular
bishop in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli; but the day following,
on Friday the 10th of September 1599, at eight o'clock in the morning, he
summoned Monsignor Taverna, governor of Rome, and said to him--

"Monsignor, we place in your hands the Cenci case, that you may carry out
the sentence as speedily as possible."

On his return to his palace, after leaving His Holiness, the governor
convened a meeting of all the criminal judges in the city, the result of
the council being that all the Cenci were condemned to death.

The final sentence was immediately known; and as this unhappy family
inspired a constantly increasing interest, many cardinals spent the whole
of the night either on horseback or in their carriages, making interest
that, at least so far as the women were concerned, they should be put to
death privately and in the prison, and that a free pardon should be
granted to Bernardo, a poor lad only fifteen years of age, who, guiltless
of any participation in the crime, yet found himself involved in its
consequences. The one who interested himself most in the case was
Cardinal Sforza, who nevertheless failed to elicit a single gleam of
hope, so obdurate was His Holiness. At length Farinacci, working on the
papal conscience, succeeded, after long and urgent entreaties, and only
at the last moment, that the life of Bernardo should be spared.

From Friday evening the members of the brotherhood of the Conforteria had
gathered at the two prisons of Corte Savella and Tordinona. The
preparations for the closing scene of the tragedy had occupied workmen on
the bridge of Sant' Angelo all night; and