“And the penalty?”
“Twenty years in the fortress, as your Most Serene Highness told me.”
“A death sentence would have horrified people,” said the prince, as though talking to himself. “A pity! What a shock it would have been to that woman! But he is a Del Dongo, and the name is honoured in Parma because of the three archbishops who came almost one after the other.… Twenty years in the fortress, you say?”
“Yes, your Most Serene Highness,” replied Rassi, who was still standing doubled up in an attitude of obeisance. “To be preceded by a public apology before a portrait of your Most Serene Highness; and besides, a fast of bread and water every Friday and on the eves of all the chief feast days, because of the prisoner’s notorious impiety. This with a view to the future, and to break the neck of his career.”
“Write,” said the prince, “‘His Most Serene Highness, having deigned to grant a favourable hearing to the very humble petitions of the Marchesa del Dongo, mother of the culprit, and the Duchess Sanseverina, his aunt, who have represented that at the period of the crime their son and nephew was very young, and carried away by his mad passion for the wife of the unfortunate Giletti, has condescended, notwithstanding his horror of the murder, to commute the penalty to which Fabrizio del Dongo has been condemned to that of twelve years’ detention in the fortress.’
“Give the paper to me to sign.” The prince added his signature and the date of the preceding day. Then, handing the sheet back to Rassi, he said: “Write just below my signature: ‘The Duchess Sanseverina having once more cast herself at his Highness’s feet, the prince has granted the culprit permission to walk for an hour, every Thursday, on the platform of the square tower, vulgarly called the Farnese Tower.’
“Sign that,” said the prince, “and keep your lips sealed, whatever you may hear in the town. You will tell Councillor de’ Capitani, who voted for two years’ imprisonment, and even held forth in support of his ridiculous opinion, that I advise him to read over the laws and regulations. Now, silence again, and good-night to you.”
Chief-Justice Rassi made three deep bows, very slowly indeed, and the prince never even looked at them.
All this happened at seven o’clock in the morning. A few hours later, the news of the Marchesa Raversi’s exile had spread all over the town and the cafés. Everybody was talking at once about the great event. For some time, thanks to the marchesa’s banishment, that implacable enemy of small cities and small courts, known as boredom, fled from the town of Parma. General Fabio Conti, who had believed himself sure of the ministry, pretended he had the gout, and never showed his nose outside his fortress for several days. The middle class, and consequently the populace, concluded from current events that the prince had resolved to confer the archbishopric of Parma on Monsignore del Dongo. The more cunning café politicians went so far as to declare that Archbishop Landriani had been invited to feign serious illness, and send in his resignation. He was to be compensated with a large pension, charged on the tobacco duties. They were quite certain of this. The rumour reached the archbishop, who was very much disturbed, and for some days his zeal in our hero’s cause was largely paralyzed in consequence. Some two months later, this fine piece of news appeared in the Paris press, with the trifling alteration that it was Count Mosca, the Duchess Sanseverina’s nephew, who was supposed to be likely to be appointed archbishop.
Meanwhile the Marchesa Raversi was raging at her country house at Velleia. There was nothing womanish about her. She was not one of those weak creatures who fancy they slake their vengeance when they pour out violent diatribes against their enemies. The very day after her disgrace, Cavaliere Riscara and three other friends of hers waited on the prince, and sued permission to go and see her in her country place. His Highness received these gentlemen with the utmost graciousness, and their arrival at Velleia was a great consolation to the marchesa.