e little
town of Lucca. At a later epoch there would have been no special peril
in this circumstance. But at the time with which we are now occupied, an
objectionable license still survived from earlier ages. The nunneries
obtained evil notoriety as houses of licentious pleasure, to which
soldiers and youths of dissolute habits resorted by preference.[186]
There appears to have been a specific profligate fanaticism, a
well-marked morbid partiality for these amours with cloistered virgins.
The young men who prosecuted them, obtained a nickname indicative of
their absorbing passion.[187] The attraction of mystery and danger had
something, no doubt, to do with this infatuation; and the fascination
that sacrilege has for depraved natures, may also be reckoned into the
account. To enjoy a lawless amour was not enough; but to possess a woman
who alternated between transports of passion and torments of remorse,
added zest to guilty pleasure. For men who habitually tampered with
magic arts and believed firmly in the devil, this raised romance to
rapture. It was a common thing for debauchees to seek what they called
_peripetezie di nuova idea_, or novel and exciting adventures
stimulative of a jaded appetite, in consecrated places. At any rate, as
will appear in the sequel of this chapter, convent intrigues occupied a
large space in the criminal annals of the day.

_The Lady of Monza_.

Virginia Maria de Leyva was a descendant of Charles V.'s general,
Antonio de Leyva, who through many years administered the Duchy of
Milan, and died loaded with wealth and honors.[188]

[Footnote 186: In support of this assertion I translate a letter
addressed (Milan, September 15, 1622) by Cardinal Federigo Borromeo to
the Prioress of the Convent of S. Margherita at Monza (Dandolo, _Signora
di Monza_, p. 132). 'Experience of similar cases has shown how dangerous
to your holy state is the vicinity of soldiers, owing to the
correspondence which young and idle soldiers continually try to
entertain with monasteries, sometimes even under fair and honorable
pretexts.... Wherefore we have heard with much displeasure that in those
places of our diocese where there are convents of nuns and congregations
of virgins, ordinary lodgings for the soldiery have been established,
called lonely houses (_case erme_), where they are suffered or obliged
to dwell through long periods.' The Bishop commands the Prioress to
admit no soldier, on any plea of piety, dev