y, a great press of curious onlookers came crowding
before the Palace. Some said, "Lo! a good deed well done!" Others, and
these the more part, at sight of so lamentable a spectacle, were filled
with ruth. Yet durst they not openly commiserate the Prince's victims,
for fear of evil handling by his armed dependents, which were set to
guard the bodies. Young men gazed at the Princess's corse, for to
discover the traces of that beauty which had been her undoing, while the
little children would be expounding one to the other the meaning of that
they saw.

Dona Maria lay stretched on her back. The lips were drawn back,
displaying the teeth in a ghastly smile. Her eyes stood wide open, the
whites only showing. Six wounds were upon her, three in the belly, which
was greatly swollen, two in the bosom, one in the neck. The last had
bled profusely, and the dogs kept fawning up to lick it.

Towards nightfall, the Prince bade set torches of resin, like as on days
of festival, in the bronze rings fixed in the Palace walls, and eke
kindle great fires in the Courtyard, to the end all men might see the
criminals plain. At midnight, a pious widow brought coverings and spread
the same over the dead bodies. But, by the Prince's commandment, these
were incontinent torn away again.

The Ambassador of Spain informed of the unseemly treatment meted to a
lady of the Spanish house of Avalos, came in person urgently to entreat
the Prince of Venosa to stay these outrages, which did insult the noble
memory of the Duke de Pescara, uncle to Dona Maria, and offend in their
tomb so many great Captains of whose blood the said lady was descended.
But he withdrew after profiting naught by his intercession; and writ a
letter thereanent to his Catholic Majesty. The poor bodies were left
shamefully exposed as before. Toward the latter end of the night, the
curious having ceased to come any more, the guards were withdrawn.

Then a Dominican monk, which had all the day lurked about the great
doors, did slip within the vestibule by the smoky light of the dying
torches, crept to the steps where Dona Maria lay, and threw himself on
her corse.

BONAPARTE AT SAN MINIATO

TO ARMAND GENEST

BONAPARTE AT SAN MINIATO

_Quand, simple citoyen, soldat d'un peuple libre,
Aux bords de l'Eridan, de l'Adige et du Tibre,
Foudroyant tour a tour quelques tyrans pervers,
Des nations en pleurs, sa main brisait les fers...._

(Marie-Joseph Chenier