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

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

Three degrees of successful issue had to be striven for by her. The first, of which she still nourished sanguine hopes, was that she might again appear on the public stage influential and powerful. The second, that the past might be buried in oblivion, and she might be left in the quiet though obscure enjoyment of her immense wealth. The third, that even if she were compelled to disgorge a great part, or even the whole of it, she might yet be safe in person.

All these issues, of course, depended on the election of a new Pope. And when the disposition towards her of the great body of the Cardinals is remembered, it seems strange that she could have had any hope as to the result. She contrived, however, to form an independent party in the Conclave, which was known in Rome at the time as "the flying squadron"—squadrone volante, the avowed object of which was, to enable either of the other contending parties to elect any pope, who would secure Olympia's safety, and to impede the election of an enemy. And the clever management of this squadron kept the Cardinals imprisoned for three months.

At length wearied out by this long confinement, and convinced of the impossibility of electing either of the favourite candidates of the leading parties, the Conclave was driven in despair to the pis–aller of electing one recommended only by his good character and apparent fitness for the office. This was Fabio Chigi of Siena, who became Pope, as Alexander the Seventh, with the consent of the squadrone volante, who thought that, as he had been raised to the purple by Innocent, and was considered a moderate man, he would not be likely to molest the "relict" of his old patron.

ALEXANDER VII.

Olympia was well satisfied with the result of the election. It seems never to have occurred to her or her friends, that the new Pope might demand a strict account from her, merely from considerations of abstract right and justice. She sent among the first to compliment him on his accession; and shortly asked for an audience. The answer was not calculated to reassure her. Alexander sent her word that it was not his intention to receive ladies, except on urgent matters of business. Still determined not to give up the game, she repeated her application to be allowed to speak with his Holiness, with increased urgency; but she only obtained the still more alarming reply, that "Donna Olympia had had but too much conversation with Popes, and that she must understand, that things would henceforth be very different."

So much time elapsed, however, before any step was taken with regard to her, that Olympia, though convinced that all hope of further influence on public affairs was out of the question, yet imagined that she was to be let alone with her enormous hoards; but Alexander, unwilling to incur the blame of acting passionately or hastily on the subject, was listening to the innumerable proofs of her ill–doings, and quietly making up his mind on the matter. Meantime it was debated by Olympia and her friends, whether her most prudent course would be to quit Rome, to go, say, to Loreto, on pretext of a pilgrimage; but the heirs of the wretched woman, and especially her son Camillo, feeling that however such a course might secure her person, it would in all probability lead to the confiscation of her wealth, persuaded her that such a step was an unwise admission of guilt, and that her case was not so hopeless.

Suddenly an order reached her to quit Rome within three days, and to be at Orvieto within eight. It came upon her like a thunderbolt; for she felt that it was the beginning of the end.

A commissary was sent after her thither to require a strict account from her of all the state monies that had passed into her hands, immediate restitution of the jewels and other valuables carried off by her from the Vatican, and her answer to the innumerable charges against her of selling offices, benefices, and pardons.