[403] Botta, ubi supra.
[404] Georgel, Memoires, vol. i. p. 160. Apud St Priest, p. 90.
[405] Gioberti, quoting Florida Blanca, vol. iii. p. 394.
[406] St Priest, p. 91, and following. All these details of the illness and death of Ganganelli we have taken from St Priest, adding now and then some particulars which we have found in other writers. But St Priest is the best authority on the subject. He has drawn from original sources—the Letters of Bernis, of Florida Blanca, the History of Botta Gorani Caraccioli—and has condensed his materials into a most accurate and impartial narrative. It would be useless, then, either to send back our readers to those authors, or to endeavour to analyse them ourselves. We shall, then, be contented with some reflections or deductions at the proper place.
[407] Ibid.
[408] Botta, ubi supra.
[409] Gioberti, vol. iii. p. 392.
[410] St Priest, p. 92.
[411] It is a popular tradition, and, indeed, not at all unfounded, that in Perugia some persons had the secret of composing a sort of water which, when drunk, produced certain death, although life was prolonged for more or less space of time, according to the quantity and strength of the dose given. The nuns, in particular, had a sad celebrity for composing this drug.
[412] St Priest, p. 93.