by Stendhal
But when summer came and Francesco Cenci departed from Rome to Petrella, the spy who was supposed to deliver word of his departure was too late in notifying the bandits hidden in the forest, and they did not have time to get down to the high road. Cenci arrived at Petrella with no trouble; the bandits, tired of waiting for what seemed a doubtful prey, went elsewhere to steal for themselves.
Cenci, for his part, being a shrewd and suspicious old man, never set foot outside the fortress. And, his bad temper worsening with the infirmities of age, which were intolerable to him, he increased the atrocious mistreatments to which he made the two poor women submit. He accused them of taking pleasure in his increasing weakness.
Beatrice, pushed to the breaking point by the horrible things she had to endure, called Marzio and Olympio to the walls outside the fortress. During the night, while her father slept, she spoke to them from a low window and threw letters down to them addressed to Monsignor Guerra. By means of these letters, it was agreed that Monsignor Guerra would promise Marzio and Olympio 1,000 piastres if they would take it upon themselves to kill Francesco Cenci. A third of the sum was to be paid by Monsignor Guerra at Rome in advance, and the other two-thirds by Lucrezia and Beatrice when, the thing having been done, they would be in charge of Cenci’s strongbox.
They settled on doing the thing on the day of the Nativity of the Virgin, and to that end the two men were admitted into the fortress clandestinely. But Lucrezia balked when she thought about the respect due to the Madonna’s feast day, and she talked Beatrice into deferring it for a day so as not to commit a double sin.
Thus, it was September 9, 1598, in the evening, that mother and daughter dexterously gave opium to Francesco Cenci, and he fell into a deep sleep.
Toward midnight, Beatrice herself let Marzio and Olympio into the fortress; then, she and Lucrezia conducted them to the old man’s bedroom, where he was sunk in sleep. There they left the two men so that they could do what had been agreed upon, and the two women went into the neighboring room to wait. But then, suddenly, they saw the two men enter looking very pale and beside themselves.
“What news?” they cried.
“It is a base thing, and a shameful one,” they replied, “to kill a poor old man in his sleep! We were overcome by pity.”
Listening to this excuse, Beatrice was seized with indignation, and she began to insult them, saying:
“So, you two men, so ready for anything, you haven’t the courage to kill a man who’s sleeping!19 And you would never dare to face him if he were awake! And you dare to take our money for this! Very well: since your cowardice forces me, I’ll kill my father myself; and as for you, you won’t live for very long either!”
Animated by these angry words and fearing some diminution in the price that had been agreed upon, the assassins reentered the bedchamber, followed by the women. One of them held up a thick nail just over the eye of the sleeping old man; the other used a hammer to drive it into his head. They hammered another one into his throat so that his weakened soul, so weighed down by his recent sins, was snatched out by devils; the body fought back, but in vain.
The thing being done, the daughter gave Olympio a fat purse full of money; she gave Marzio a woolen cloak with a gold stripe, which had belonged to her father, and she sent them on their way.
The two women, alone now, began by removing the great nail pounded into the head of the corpse, and the one in the neck; then, having wrapped the body in a bedsheet, they dragged it along a long corridor until they came to a gallery that opened onto a little abandoned garden. From there, they threw the corpse into a great mulberry tree that grew below in that solitary spot. Because there was a commode at one end of the gallery, they hoped that when the body was discovered in the morning hanging tangled in the tree branches, people would assume he had slipped and fallen on his way to the commode.
Things happened exactly as foreseen. In the morning when the corpse was discovered, there was a great hubbub in the fortress; the women did not fail to cry out and to weep for the unhappy death of a father and a spouse. But though the young Beatrice had the courage of offended modesty, she did not have the prudence necessary in life; early in the morning, she gave a bloodstained sheet to one of the laundresses in the fortress, telling her not to be surprised at the quantity of blood, because during the night she had suffered from an exceptionally heavy flow; all was well, for the moment.
Francesco Cenci was given an honorable funeral, and the women returned to Rome, enjoying the tranquillity they had sought in vain for so long. They assumed their happiness would go on forever, for they did not know what was happening at Naples.
The justice of God, unwilling to allow so atrocious a parricide to go unpunished, saw to it that when the story of what had happened in the fortress became known in Rome, the chief judge felt some misgivings, and he sent a royal commissioner to inspect the body and to arrest any suspects.
The royal commissioner had everyone in the fortress arrested. They were all brought to Naples in chains, and nothing suspicious arose from their depositions except for that of the laundress, who told of Beatrice giving her one or more bloodstained bedsheets. She was asked if Beatrice had tried to explain those large bloodstains; she replied that Beatrice had spoken of a natural indisposition. She was asked if bloodstains of that size could have come from such an indisposition; she replied no, that the redness of the stains was too bright.
These facts were sent on immediately to the judge in Rome, but nonetheless, several months passed before anyone among us here dreamed of arresting the children of Francesco Cenci. Lucrezia, Beatrice, and Giacomo could have saved themselves a thousand times, whether by going to Florence under the pretext of some pilgrimage or by setting off for Civita-Vecchia; but God denied them such a saving inspiration.
Monsignor Guerra, hearing what was taking place in Naples, immediately sent men to kill Marzio and Olympio; but only Olympio could be found, and he was killed at Terni. The Neapolitan judge had had Marzio arrested and taken to Naples, where he immediately admitted everything.
This terrible deposition was quickly sent to the judge in Rome, who decided to have Giacomo and Bernardo Cenci, the only surviving sons of Francesco, arrested and taken to the prison of Corte Savella, along with his wife, Lucrezia. Beatrice was being held in the palazzo of her father by a large troupe of sbirri. Marzio was brought to Naples and also placed in the Savella prison; there, he was confronted with the two women, who consistently denied everything, and Beatrice specifically denied recognizing the striped cloak she had given to Marzio. The latter, inspired with admiration for the great beauty and stunning eloquence of the girl as he watched her responding to the judge, now denied everything that he had admitted at Naples. He was put to torture, but he admitted nothing, preferring to die in his torments as a fitting homage to the beauty of Beatrice.
Following the death of this man, the matter remaining unproved, the judges did not find sufficient cause to put either the two sons of Cenci or the two women to torture. All four were taken to the Castel Sant’Angelo, where they spent four months quite peacefully.
Everything seemed to be coming to an end, and no one in Rome any longer doubted that this girl, so beautiful and so courageous, who had inspired such keen interest, would soon be given her liberty, when, unluckily, the man who had murdered Olympio was arrested; taken to Rome, the man admitted to everything.
Monsignor Guerra, so surprisingly compromised by this man’s testimony, was subpoenaed without delay; prison was certain, and death probable. But this remarkable man, endowed by fate with the ability to do everything well, managed to save himself in a near-miraculous manner. He was the best-looking man at the papal court, known so well throughout Rome that escape would be impossible; in any case, the gates were strongly guarded, and his house had probably been under surveillance from the moment the summons was issued. It is important to know also that he was very tall, with a very light complexion and a fine blond beard, and with a fine head of the sa
me-colored hair.
With incredible swiftness, he got hold of a coal merchant, took the man’s clothes, had his head and beard shaved, tinted his complexion, bought two donkeys, and began to wander the streets of Rome selling coal and limping as he went. He put on a wonderful air of grossness and stupidity, crying out to sell his coal while his mouth was full of bread and onions, as hundreds of sbirri were searching not only within Rome but also along all the roadways. Eventually, when the sight of him was well enough known to the sbirri, he dared exit Rome, always whipping his two donkeys ahead of him weighted down with coal. He encountered numerous groups of sbirri, none of whom bothered to stop him. Since then, only one single letter has come from him; his mother sent some money for him to Marseille, and everyone assumes he went to war in France as a soldier.
The confession of the assassin from Terni and the flight of Monsignor Guerra, which produced a stunning sensation in Rome, brought back to life all the suspicions and all the clues pointing to the Cenci’s guilt, so they were taken from the Castel Sant’Angelo and returned to the Savella prison.
The two brothers, when put to torture, were far from imitating the noble soul of the brigand Marzio; they were weak enough to admit everything. Signora Lucrezia Petroni had been so accustomed to the softness and ease of great luxury, and she was not physically strong to begin with, that she could not endure the ordeal of the “rope”; she told everything she knew.
But this was not the case with Beatrice Cenci, that girl so full of life and bravery. Neither the kind words nor the threats of the judge Moscati had any result. She endured the torments of the rope without a hint of change and with a perfect courage. The judge could do nothing to induce any response that would compromise her in the slightest; moreover, with her inner strength and spirit, she completely confounded that famous judge Ulysse Moscati, the chief interrogator. He was so surprised by the way this girl behaved that he decided to make a full report to His Holiness Clement VIII, fortunately reigning at that time.
His Holiness wanted to see and study all the trial reports. He feared that the judge, Ulysse Moscati, so famous for his deep science and his superior wisdom, had been vanquished by the beauty of Beatrice and had spared her in his interrogations. As a result, His Holiness removed him from his position of directing the trial and put matters in the hands of another, more severe judge. And in fact this barbarian had the courage to torture that beautiful body pitilessly, submitting her to torturam capillorum (that is, Beatrice was interrogated while hanged by her hair).20
While she was hanging from the rope, this new judge had her stepmother and her brothers brought in. As soon as Giacomo and Lucrezia saw her:
“The sin has been committed,” they cried; “and now the penance is due; do not let your body be torn apart through a vain stubbornness.”
“So you want to cover our family in shame,” the girl replied, “and die in disgrace? You are making a grave mistake; but since you want it this way, let it be.”
And then, turning toward the sbirri:
“Let me down,” she said to them, “and let me read my mother’s deposition. I will admit to what must be admitted, and deny what must be denied.”
And so it was done; she admitted everything that was true.21 The chains were removed from all of them, and because it had been five months since she had seen her brothers, she wanted to dine with them, and the four of them enjoyed a happy day together.
But on the following day, they were separated again; the two brothers were taken to the prison in Tordinona, and the women remained at Savella. Our Holy Father the pope, having seen the formal document containing their admissions of guilt, ordered that without delay they should be attached to the tails of wild horses and thereby torn to death.
All Rome shuddered at learning of this harsh sentence. A large number of cardinals and princes went and got down on their knees before the pope, begging him to allow these miserable ones to present their defense.
“And did they give their aged father a chance to present his defense?” replied the pope indignantly.
Finally, by special grace he accorded them a reprieve of twenty-five days. And then the premier lawyers in Rome began to write up their pleas in this case that had filled all Rome with anguish and pity. On the twenty-fifth day, they all appeared together before His Holiness. Nicolo De’Angelis was the first to speak; but he had got no further than the opening lines of his defense when Clement VIII interrupted:
“So,” he exclaimed, “in Rome there are not only people who kill their fathers but lawyers who will defend them!”
Everyone remained silent, until Farinacci was bold enough to raise his voice.
“Most Holy Father,” he said, “we are not here to defend the crime but to prove, if we can, that one or several of these unfortunates are innocent of the crime.”
The pope signaled him to continue, and he spoke for three solid hours, after which the pope took all their depositions and dismissed them. As they were leaving, Altieri walked behind the group; he was afraid of being compromised, and he turned and got down on his knees before the pope, saying:
“I have no choice but to appear in this case, being advocate for the poor.”
To which the pope replied:
“We are shocked not by you but by the others.”
The pope did not want to go to bed, instead spending the night reading the lawyers’ pleas, assisted in the task by the cardinal of San Marcello; His Holiness seemed greatly touched that so many had conceived some hope for the lives of the unfortunates. In order to save the sons, the lawyers had put the entire guilt on Beatrice. Because it had been repeatedly proved during the hearing that her father had used force in his criminal designs on her, the lawyers hoped that she might be pardoned for the murder, as in a case of self-defense; and if this were the case, with the principal actor in the crime being pardoned, how could her brothers, who had been seduced into it by her, be given a death sentence?
After that night spent on his duties as a judge, Clement VIII ordered that the accused be returned to prison and held in secret confinement. This circumstance gave great hopes to the Roman observers, who always focused entirely on Beatrice. There was an allegation that she had been in love with Monsignor Guerra but had never transgressed against the strictest rules of virtue: thus, no one could, with any justice at all, impute to her the crimes of a monster, and now she was to be punished simply for defending herself! What would they all say if she had consented? Did human justice require the worsening of the misery of a creature so amiable, so worthy of pity, and already so unhappy? After a life so sad that by the time she was sixteen she had already experienced every kind of misery, did she not deserve a few less hideous days? Everyone in Rome took up her defense. Would she not have been pardoned if, the very first time Francesco Cenci attempted his crimes with her, she had stabbed him right then?
Pope Clement VIII was a good man and a merciful one. We began to hope that he was a little ashamed of the way he had interrupted the lawyers, and that he would pardon someone who repelled violence with violence not, it is true, at the moment of the very first crime but when it was attempted on her again. All Rome was in anxiety over the matter when the pope received word of the violent death of the Marchesa Costanza Santa Croce. Her son Paolo Santa Croce had just killed the woman, aged sixty years, because she would not agree to let him inherit her entire holdings. The report added that Santa Croce had fled and that there was little hope of capturing him. The pope recalled the fratricide of the Massimi not so very long before.22 Disgusted by the frequency of these murders within families, His Holiness felt a pardon was not permissible. When he received the fatal report concerning Santa Croce, the pope was in the palazzo at Monte-Cavallo, on September 6, in order to be nearby the next morning to the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, where he was to consecrate a German cardinal as a bishop.
On that Friday, at ten o’clock, he had Ferrante Taverna,23 the governor of Rome, summoned, and these are the exact words he said
to him:
“We place the Cenci business in your hands, so that justice may be done, and done without delay.”
The governor returned to his palazzo very moved by the command he had just been given; he formally ordered the death sentence and convened an assembly to determine the method of execution.
Saturday morning, September 11, 1599, the leading gentlemen of Rome, members of the confortatori confraternity,24 went to the two prisons, the Corte Savella, where Beatrice and her stepmother were held, and Tordinona, where Giacomo and Bernardo Cenci were. All during the night between Friday and Saturday, the Roman gentlemen who knew what was afoot had spent the entire time going back and forth between the palazzo of Monte-Cavallo and those of the principal cardinals, trying to obtain an agreement that the women at least would be put to death behind the prison walls and not have to be taken to the disgrace of the public scaffold; and that mercy might be obtained for young Bernardo Cenci, who, barely fifteen years old, had not admitted to knowing anything of the crime. The noble Cardinal Sforza was especially distinguished by his zealous efforts in the course of that fatal night, but, powerful prince though he was, he was unable to obtain any concession. The crime of Santa Croce was a vile one, committed for the sake of getting money, and the crime of Beatrice was committed for the sake of honor.
While the most powerful cardinals were making so many futile efforts, Farinacci, our great legal expert, was audacious enough to manage to get in to see the pope; once arrived before His Holiness, this stunning man was able to touch his conscience, and at last, through many entreaties, he gained the life of Bernardo Cenci.