oth these men had private reasons for committing the crime--one being
actuated by love, the other by hatred. Marzio, who was in the service
of Giacomo, had often seen Beatrice, and loved her, but with that silent
and hopeless love which devours the soul. When he conceived that the
proposed crime would draw him nearer to Beatrice, he accepted his part
in it without any demur.

As for Olympio, he hated Francesco, because the latter had caused him to
lose the post of castellan of Rocco Petrella, a fortified stronghold in
the kingdom of Naples, belonging to Prince Colonna. Almost every year
Francesco Cenci spent some months at Rocco Petrella with his family;
for Prince Colonna, a noble and magnificent but needy prince, had much
esteem for Francesco, whose purse he found extremely useful. It had so
happened that Francesco, being dissatisfied with Olympio, complained
about him to Prince Colonna, and he was dismissed.

After several consultations between the Cenci family, the abbe and the
sbirri, the following plan of action was decided upon.

The period when Francesco Cenci was accustomed to go to Rocco Petrella
was approaching: it was arranged that Olympio, conversant with the
district and its inhabitants, should collect a party of a dozen
Neapolitan bandits, and conceal them in a forest through which the
travellers would have to pass. Upon a given signal, the whole family
were to be seized and carried off. A heavy ransom was to be demanded,
and the sons were to be sent back to Rome to raise the sum; but, under
pretext of inability to do so, they were to allow the time fixed by
the bandits to lapse, when Francesco was to be put to death. Thus all
suspicions of a plot would be avoided, and the real assassins would
escape justice.

This well-devised scheme was nevertheless unsuccessful. When Francesco
left Rome, the scout sent in advance by the conspirators could not find
the bandits; the latter, not being warned beforehand, failed to come
down before the passage of the travellers, who arrived safe and sound
at Rocco Petrella. The bandits, after having patrolled the road in vain,
came to the conclusion that their prey had escaped, and, unwilling to
stay any longer in a place where they had already spent a week, went off
in quest of better luck elsewhere.

Francesco had in the meantime settled down in the fortress, and, to be
more free to tyrannise over Lucrezia and Beatrice, sent back to Rome
Giacomo and his two other son