[3] This decision, given on December 17, 1822, was deposited, with the letter, with Maître A. Chelli, notary at Florence.
[4] These letters, which bore the Florence postmark, have always inspired me with very unpleasant suspicions as to the lawyer Chiappini.
[5] This, the 24th day of June, 1824, sitting in the name of our Lord, Pope Leo XII, the Sovereign Pontiff, happily reigning, in the first year of his Pontificate; declaration xii, at Faenza.
The period of ten days, in which to appeal, having elapsed since the notification of the judgment given by this Ecclesiastical Tribunal of Faenza, on the 24th of May last, in the lawsuit between her Excellency Lady Maria Newborough, Baronne de Sternberg, and M. le Comte Charles Bandini, of this town, acting as legal representative of the Comte Louis and Madame N. de Joinville, and to all such other absent person or persons who may have, or may suppose they have, any interest in the case; also to the Signore Dottore Tomaso Chiappini, living in Florence, in the State of Tuscany, without any one having appealed against it; I, the undersigned, by virtue of the faculties given me by the aforesaid judgment, have proceeded to the carrying out of that judgment, by means of the rectification of the birth certificate produced in the course of the trial, the terms of which are as follows:
“In the name of God, Amen.
“I the undersigned, Canon, Chaplain and Rector of the Prioral and Collegiate Church of St. Stephen, Pope and Martyr, in the territory of Modigliana, in the Tuscan States, and in the Diocese of Faenza, testify to having found in the fourth book of certificates of birth, the following notice:
“Maria-Stella-Petronilla, born yesterday, of the couple Lorenzo, son of Fernando Chiappini, Sheriff’s Officer of this place, and Vincenzia Viligenti, daughter of the late N. of this parish, was baptised on the 17th of April, 1773, by me, Canon Francesco Signari, one of the Chaplains.
“The god-parents were Francesco Bandelloni, Constable, and Stella Ciabatti.
“In testimony whereof, etc.,
“Signed, Gaetano Violani,