short time she came to the resolution of accusing her faithless and abandoned husband to the state, by revealing the transaction which had led to his sudden elevation and prosperity. And this appearing the only resource she had left to revenge her injuries upon the author of them, without further warning or consultation, she proceeded, alone, to consult a magistrate, who holding an office similar to that of the Council of Eight in Florence, took down her deposition, comprehending every thing she knew relative to the affairs of her husband. She, moreover, directed them to the exact spot where the remains of the miser had been buried, in the cellar of their former house, and where the officers of justice accordingly found them. Then still retaining her in custody, the magistrate despatched the captain of the band to the residence of her husband, where they found him enjoying himself in the society of his fair Maddelena. Immediately seizing him as a prisoner of the state, they conducted him back to Pisa, overwhelmed with the most abject despair; and when brought up for examination, he refused to utter a syllable. But his wife being ordered to appear against him, he cried out with a loud voice, at the sight of her, "This is justice, indeed!" and then turning towards her, he added, "My too great affection for you has brought me to this;" and, taking one of the magistrates aside, he freely revealed to him the truth of the affair, exactly as it had occurred. With one accord, however, the whole court refused to give credit to the story, asserting that there was every appearance of his having himself robbed and murdered the unfortunate Guglielmo, and threatening instantly to put him to torture if he did not confess. This, upon his maintaining his own story, they proceeded to do, and by dint of repeated trials, they at length compelled him to say what they pleased; and F F afterwards proceeded to sentence him to be broken alive upon the wheel, while the state appropriated the whole of his possessions. The remains of the miser, Grimaldi, were then ordered to be removed, and interred in sacred ground; the beautiful Maddelena and her mother were driven with ignominy from the villa to their former abode; and the establishment of Fazio was completely broken up; his wife, with her family and domestics, being compelled to take refuge wherever they could. On being released from court, where she had appeared in evidence against her own husband, the wretched Pippa returned home; but to a home desolate and deserted by all but her children. In the agony of her grief, she wept, she raved, she tore her hair, too late perceiving, with feelings of remorse, the grievous error she had committed. The tidings spread rapidly throughout all Pisa, and the people joined in expressing their astonishment, no less at the supposed enormity and deceit of which Fazio was accused, than at the strange treachery and ingratitude of his wife. Even her own relatives and friends who assisted her, unanimously agreed in condemning her conduct, reproaching her bitterly for the degradation and ruin which she had brought upon her family; besides the inhumanity of having thus betrayed her husband to a painful and ignominious death. Having said this, they left her weeping bitterly, and overpowered with intollerable remorse. On the ensuing day, the wretched Fazio was led forth, and drawn through the streets of Pisa on a sledge; and after being thus exhibited to the people, he was conducted to the place of execution. There, having been first broken upon the wheel, he was executed in the presence of the people, and left on the same spot, by way of example, during the rest of the day. The tidings of this terrific scene coming to the ears of his wife, whom he had continued cursing and reviling to his latest hour, in a fit of desperation she resolved to take vengeance upon herself. About dinner hour then, there being few people to observe her, she seized her two little boys by the hand, and led them, weeping, towards the great square, the scene of the execution; while such as met her by the way only bestowed their maledictions on her, and allowed her to pass on. When she arrived at the foot of the platform, where the body lay, few spectators being present, she proceeded, still weeping bitterly, to ascend the steps of the platform, with the children along with her, no one around offering the least resistance. There, affecting to lament over the wretched fate of her husband, she was sternly and severely upbraided by all who stood near, who said aloud, "See how she can weep now that it is done! It is her own work; she would have it so; and let her therefore despair!" The wretched wife then tearing her hair, and striking her lovely face and bosom with her clenched hands, while she pressed her burning lips to the cold features of husband, next bade her little boys kneel down to kiss their father; at which sight the surrounding spectators, forgetting their anger, suddenly burst into tears. But their distracted mother, drawing a knife from her bosom, with remorseless fury, hastily plunged it into the breasts of her sons, and before the people were prepared to wrest the deadly weapon from her hand, she had already turned it against herself, and fallen upon the lifeless bodies of her husband and her children. With a loud cry the people ran towards the fatal spot, where they found the dying mother and her two infants, pouring their last sighs as they lay weltering in their blood. Tidings of this tragic scene having spread rapidly throughout all Pisa, crowds of people came hastening from all sides filled with lamentation FF 2 and terror, to witness so heart-rending a spectacle; where the yet warm and reeking bodies of the father, the mother, and the children, were piled indiscriminately upon each other. And surely nothing we have heard of the woes of Thebes, of Syracuse, or of Athens, of Troy, or of Rome, can be said to equal the domestic sorrow and calamity which Pisa thus witnessed in the lot of a single family, the whole of which was swept away in one day, the innocent victims of mistaken justice. The terror and surprise of the inhabitants of Pisa, shortly spreading through other parts of Italy, caused so great a sensation in the different cities, that people left their houses to visit the fatal spot, lamenting over the bodies of the innocent children, lying with smiling countenances, as if buried in profound slumber, on their parents' funeral bier. It was impossible for them to restrain their tears at the sight, a sight sufficient to soften a heart of stone, and at which Justice herself now dropped her fatal sword. For she at length consented to grant to the prayers of Fazio's relatives, that the bodies of the hapless children should be decently interred in the burial ground of Santa Catarina; while those of the parents, who had died a desperate and unrepentant death, were to be placed without the sacred bounds, under the walls of the city. The procession was accompanied with the tears and lamentations of thousands, whose outcries against the cruelty and injustice of their fate, and whose expressions of pity for their sufferings, were loud and vehement. THE BOY AND THE BUTTERFLY. BY T. CROFTON CRUKER, FAIR lady, see-yon butterfly, That freely roves from rose to rose, Inhales their sweets; then wanders by, Now here, now there, to seek repose. Thus had I hoped, in sunny hour, Of bloom and beauty I had found. But, lady, see yon idle boy, Whose eye hath caught its painted wing, Quick follows with an eager joy, And tries to seize the wretched thing. 'Tis thus that wicked urchin, Love, Pursues my soul's unfetter'd flight; Thus follows quickly where I rove; Thus tries to snare me when I 'light. Still, though my soul can gaily spring From flower to flower, in flight as wild The tarnish'd hue, the ruffled wing, Mark many a struggle with the child. |