A Decade of Italian Women, vol. 1 (of 2)

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

To these demands Savelli replied, that for the children there was nothing to be feared: they were in perfect safety. As to the Countess, she was in perfect liberty as far as the city authorities were concerned; and all that was asked of her was to give up the citadel and depart in peace. But as for proclaiming the late Count's heir, sovereign of Forlì, that was wholly out of the question, even if the city wished to do so; inasmuch as they had already declared themselves the Pope's subjects, and had sent an embassy to Rome to lay their city and their fealty at the feet of his Holiness. With which answer the herald retired.

THE ORSI AFFAIR LOOKS BLUE.

But the mere appearance of this messenger from the Lord of Bologna had produced an effect upon several of the citizens, which must have warned the conspirators how little they could depend upon the steadiness or support of the people. Many began to murmur against those who, they already surmised, might be ultimately on the losing side; and Savelli and the Orsi had to send many suspected of adhering to the Riarii out of the city.

Catherine's sister Stella was taken from the Gatehouse prison to the bedside of her betrothed husband Ricci, who was laid up by wounds he had received in the fighting that had occurred in the palace immediately after the murder; and having been there married to him, was permitted to depart to Cesena in company with her mother Lucretia.

During this day, too, the Orsi, becoming more and more painfully anxious about the issue of their enterprise, sent a letter to Lorenzo de' Medici, asking his support against the family of his old enemy. But on the 19th, the messenger came back, bringing only a verbal answer from Lorenzo, to the effect that he had no surviving resentment on account of by-gone matters to gratify—that he had no inclination to meddle in such an affair as that proposed to him; and that he hoped and purposed to pass the remainder of his days in quiet.

On the 20th, arrived two letters from the Duke of Milan, one to Savelli, and one to the Comunità of Forlì. In the first the Duke expressed his astonishment that the Cardinal should have ventured to take possession of Forlì, not merely without any commission from his Holiness, but, as there was every reason to believe, before any knowledge of the recent events had reached the Papal court. He admonished his Eminence, that he was acting in open disregard of all law and every principle of justice; and concluded by very pointedly advising him, as he would avoid further misfortunes, to return forthwith to his own affairs at Cesena. The letter to the Comunità in much the same terms advised the citizens, as the only means of confining the consequences of the late excesses to the immediate authors of them, to send away the Cardinal, and return at once to their allegiance.

Savelli began to find himself in a difficult and disagreeable position, and resolved on taking a strong, and what would appear to our ideas a dangerous step. Since nothing came from Rome, neither troops, nor authority of any kind for what he had done in the Pope's name, his Eminence determined to forge the letter so urgently needed. He accordingly produced a bull, which he declared had just reached him from Rome, by which his Holiness thanked the Forlìvesi for their affection towards the Church, accepted the allegiance of the city, and promised to send troops with speed to support them in the course they had taken. The fraud was, however, but partially successful for the moment; for many, we are told, doubted of the authenticity of this bull from the first.

HOPES AND FEARS.

The next day things looked still worse for the conspirators and their ecclesiastical patron. Two heralds from Bentivoglio, and the Duke of Milan, rode into the great square of Forlì, and publicly before the people demanded, in the name of the Duke of Milan, that the children of the late Count should be immediately brought to him; announcing further, that a strong force was then on its march, and already within a short distance of the city. Checco d'Orsi, who received them, replied with the utmost insolence and audacity, that the children had already been put to death, and that Forlì feared neither Bentivoglio nor the Duke of Milan, as the Pope's troops would be there to help them before the Milanese could reach the city. How much of this was mere bravado, and how much inspired by real hope of succour from Rome, it is difficult to say. But it became clear afterwards, that Innocent VIII., who was a very different man from the aggressive Franciscan his predecessor, had turned a completely deaf ear to the proposals of the Forlìvesi, and the communications of his own legate; being determined, as it should seem, in no wise to interfere in the matter. Indeed, when the over-zealous legate Savelli was afterwards within an inch of being hung by Catherine for his share in the revolution, Innocent abstained from all interference even by remonstrance in his favour.

Thus matters went on till the 29th, the Milanese and Bolognese troops gradually drawing near to the city, and Savelli and the Orsi becoming daily more discouraged and alarmed at the non-appearance of the expected assistance from the Pope. Once the sentine on the top of the tower of the Palazzo Pubblico declared, that he saw troops coming towards the city from the southward; and the news in an instant put the declining cause of the conspirators once again in the ascendant with the fickle populace. The whole city was ringing with cries of "Orso! Orso! Chiesà! Chiesà!" when it was discovered that the supposed Papal army was a body of fifty horsemen coming to the assistance of the Countess; and the affections of the Forlì lieges again began to lean towards their old masters accordingly.