Nicolino seemed moved by the executioner’s disappointment, and taking three pieces of gold from his pocket, gave them to him, and turning to the Governor, requested to be taken back to prison.

  The note received by Vanni had been thus expressed:

  “The King arrived to-night. The Neapolitan army is defeated; the French will be here in a fortnight.

  “C.”

  Now the Marquis Vanni had reflected that it was inopportune, just as the French were to enter Naples, to torture a prisoner accused solely of being a partisan of the French. As to Nicolino, who had been threatened with such a severe trial, he returned to dungeon No. 3, without knowing to what fortunate chance he was indebted for getting off so cheaply.

  The same hour that saw Nicolino taken back to his cell saw Cardinal Ruffo, faithful to his promise of the night before, entering the King’s apartments.

  The King was alone with a man of about forty years of age. By an almost imperceptible tonsure lost in a forest of black hair one recognised him for an abbé. For the rest he was a strapping fellow, made one would have thought rather for a carabineer’s uniform than for the robe of an ecclesiastic.

  Ruffo drew back a step.

  “Come in, come in, my dear Cardinal,” said the King; “you are not in the way; I present to you the Abbé Pronio. He came but a minute ago from my director, Monseigneur Rossi, Bishop of Nicosia. He can now speak before us both. Relate what has brought you; Cardinal Ruffo is one of my friends.”

  “One of the best, sire,” said the abbé, bowing to the Cardinal. “Who does not know him, the fortifier of Ancona, the inventor of a new furnace to mould bullets!”

  “Ah, Cardinal, you were not expecting a compliment on your military exploits.”

  “No, but I presume,” said Ruffo, “that the abbé has not come only for that.”

  “True, abbé, the Cardinal reminds me that I have business on hand; proceed, we are listening.”

  “I will be brief, sire. Yesterday, at nine in the evening, I was at my nephew’s, a master of the post. Ten minutes previously a courier had passed, had ordered horses urgently for a very great nobleman, and had gone on laughing. I was seized with curiosity; and when the carriage stopped, I approached it, and to my great amazement recognised the King. The King, whom one supposed to be in Rome, was returning alone in a post-chaise, accompanied by a single nobleman who was wearing the King’s clothes, while the King was wearing the clothes of that nobleman; it was an event. I questioned the postillions and heard that there had been a great battle, that the Neapolitans had been defeated, and that the King — how shall I say it, sire?” the abbé asked, bowing respectfully — ” and that the King.”

  “Cut away.”

  “Then the idea occurred to me that if the Neapolitans were really in flight they were running with one accord to Naples, and that therefore there was but one way of stopping the French, who would be, if not stopped, on their heels.”

  “Let us hear it,” said Ruffo.

  “It was to raise the Abruzzi and the labourers in insurrection, and since there was no longer an army to oppose them with, to oppose to them a people.”

  Ruffo looked at Pronio. “Are you by chance a man of genius, abbé?” he asked.

  “Who knows?” replied the abbé.

  “Let him go on; let him go on,” cried the King.

  “So this morning I have come straight to the King as from His Majesty’s confessor.”

  “Are you acquainted with him?” asked Ruffo.

  “I have never seen him, but I hoped that the King would pardon my lie for my good intentions; if the King adopts my plan of an insurrection, no train of powder would ignite more quickly; I proclaim a holy war, and before a week is out I raise the whole country from Aquila to Teano.”

  “And you will do that singly?” demanded Ruffo.

  “No, monseigneur; I should have two assistants — one is Gaetano Mammone, better known as the miller of Sora.”

  “Haven’t I heard that name in connection with the murder of those two Jacobins della Torre?” enquired the King.

  “It is possible, sire,” replied the Abbé Pronio. “Gaetano Mammone is rarely absent when anyone is killed within ten leagues of him; he scents blood.”

  “You know him?” asked Ruffo.

  “He is my friend, Eminence.”

  “And who is the other?”

  “A young brigand of the greatest promise, sire, called Michael Pezza; but he has taken the name of Fra Diavolo. Though scarcely one and twenty years of age, he is already leader of a band of thirty men in the mountains of Mignano. He was in love with a young girl whose father gave her to another; he killed his rival, and *

  afterwards carried off the girl, who now adores him and is as great a brigand as he.”

  “And these are the men you think of employing?” asked the King.

  “Sire, one does not raise an insurrection with seminarists.”

  “The abbé is right, sire,” said Ruffo.

  “So be it, and with these means you promise to succeed, and will raise the Abruzzi and the field labourers.”

  “I answer for it; I know everyone, and everyone knows me; but I am counting on my two friends, captains as I am; they are as valuable as I, and I no less than they. Only let the King deign to sign commissions for us to prove to the peasants that we are acting in his name, and I will answer for everything.”

  “Oh, oh,” said the King; “I am not scrupulous, but to choose as my captains two such fellows! You must give me ten minutes for reflection, abbé.”

  “Ten, twenty, thirty, sire. The matter is too advantageous for Your Majesty to refuse, and His Eminence is too devoted to the interests of the crown not to advise it.”

  “Well, abbé,” said the King, “leave us alone for a moment; we will discuss your plan.”

  “I will read my breviary in the ante-chamber,” said Pronio, and he bowed and went out.

  The King and the Cardinal looked at one another.

  “An odd sort of St. Bernard to preach a crusade, eh, Cardinal,” said the King.

  “Men are scarce. Perhaps he will succeed all the better.”

  “Yes, but when one is called Ferdinand of Bourbon, how can one sign commissions for a brigand chief and a man who drinks blood as another drinks water?”

  “I understand Your Majesty’s repugnance

  still, in the position in which we are but only sign the abbé’s, and authorize him to sign the others.”

  }

  “Ah, with you one is never in a difficulty. Let us recall the abbé,”

  “No, sire; leave him time to read his breviary; we have other matters on hand at least as pressing. Your Majesty did me the honour to ask my opinion as to the forgery of a certain letter.”

  “Well?”

  “Your Majesty will not dispute the fact that I am detested by the Queen; now I have no wish to make her detest me still more.”

  “Why do you say this?”

  “Apropos of the letter from His Majesty the Emperor of Austria. At what o’clock did you return to Naples with M. Andrew Baker the day he had the honour of dining with you?”

  “Between five and six o’clock.”

  “Well, an hour afterwards the master of the post at Capua was instructed to tell Ferrari when he should come through that he would find Your Majesty at Caserta. Why was Ferrari wanted at Caserta? I do not know. Probably to try to seduce him. We have heard and believe his story that his horse fell, and that he was carried into the dispensary by Acton’s secretary, and there it was found convenient to prolong his swoon with the aid of some drops of laudanum. I had no need to ask questions,” said the Cardinal, and he drew from his pocket a coffee spoon. “Here,” said he, “is the spoon with which it was introduced into his mouth, with a deposit remaining, which proves that he did not lick it, and the sharp and persistent smell of opium indicates the nature of the deposit even after the lapse of a month.”

  The King gazed at the Cardinal with his usual naive astonishment when anything was beyond him.

  “And then?”

  “And then, sire, when Ferrari in his swoon was still further lulled by these extra precautions, someone took the letter from his pocket, unsealed it by holding the wax above a taper, read the letter, and as it contained the opposite of what was hoped, someone removed the writing with oxalic acid. Here is the little bottle still more than half full,” and the Cardinal drew from his pocket a little flask containing a liquid clear as spring water, and evidently distilled, and asking the King for some unimportant letter, he demonstrated with ease the removal of some lines of handwriting, and inserted some others in their place.

  “Well, what happened after that?” said the King, sighing when he had inspected the paper.

  “Then, sire, after the substitution of the Emperor’s approval for his refusal, the letter was resealed with a seal like the Emperor’s; only, as this was done by candlelight, it was done with a wax a little paler in colour than the original;” and taking the letter, he pointed out to the King the difference between the two layers of wax on the seal.

  “True,” cried the King, “quite true.”

  “Besides,” added the Cardinal, “here is the stick of sealing-wax,” and he laid it beside the spoon and the phial on the table.

  “And how did you get all this evidence,” asked the King, so interested and astonished that he was unwilling to lose a detail.

  “Oh, in the simplest way, sire. I came this morning to the dispensary in search of some medicine, as I often do, but with a certain fixed idea; I found this spoon on the night table, this phial in the glass cupboard, and the sealing wax on the table. Cardinal Richelieu required but three lines of a man’s handwriting to get him hanged.”

  “Yes,” said the King. “Unfortunately, there are some people one does not hang, whatever they may have done.”

  “And now,” said the Cardinal, looking fixedly at the King, “if you have any regard for Ferrari, I believe that the air of Naples is very unhealthy for him just now. I am sure of it.”

  “Then it is very simple. I will send him to Vienna. Besides, as you will understand, I want this matter cleared up; so I will return to the Emperor the despatch in which he tells me that he will begin a campaign as soon as I am in Rome; and I will ask him what he has to say to that.”

  “And, that no one may suspect anything, Your Majesty sets out for Naples to-day, telling Ferrari to come to me to-night at St. Lencio, and to take my orders as if they were Your Majesty’s. I will write to the Emperor in Your Majesty’s name, telling him of your doubts, and begging him to send the reply to me. I will map out Ferrari’s route that he may avoid the French.”

  “You are prodigious, my dear Cardinal! Nothing is impossible to you.”

  “Then, sire, as time presses, let us return to the Abbé Pronio.”

  The King summoned a footman to fetch Pronio.

  The abbé did not keep him waiting, and whether he had been reading his breviary or no, entered with the same easy bearing as before, and saluting the King and Cardinal said: “I await His Majesty’s commands.”

  “My commands will be easy to follow, my dear abbé. I order you to do all you have promised.”

  “I am ready, sire.”

  “Now, let us understand one another.”

  The meaning of these words was evidently not clear to Pronio, who looked questioningly at the King.

  “I am asking you,” said Ferdinand, “what favours you are expecting from me.”

  “To serve Your Majesty, and, if need be, to die for you.”

  “You do not ask for an archbishopric, a bishopric, not the least little abbey?”

  “If when the French are driven out and all is over, I have served Your Majesty well, you will reward me; if ill, you will have me shot.”

  “Then,” said the King, “it is simply a matter of giving you a commission?”

  “One to me, sire, one to Fra Diavolo, one to Mammone. I answer for them as for myself.”

  “Draw up the abbé’s commission, Eminence.”

  Ruffo seated himself at a table, wrote a few lines and read as follows: —

  “I, Ferdinand of Bourbon, King of the Two Sicilies and Jerusalem, “Declare “Having entire confidence in the eloquence, patriotism and military talents of the Abbé Pronio, “that I name him “my Captain in the Abruzzi and “if necessary in all other parts of my kingdom; “approving “All he will do for the defence of the territory of this kingdom and to prevent the French from penetrating it, authorize him to sign commissions like this in favour of two persons whom he will judge worthy of seconding him in this noble task promising to recognize for leaders of the people the two persons whom he will have chosen.

  “In witness of which we have given to him the present commission, “In our Castle of Caserta, this 10th December, 1798.”

  “Is that it, sir?” enquired the King of Pronio, after having heard the Cardinal read the above.

  “Yes, sire, except that Your Majesty has not desired to assume responsibility in signing commissions for the two captains I had the honour to recommend.’’ “No, I have given you the right to sign them.”

  “I thank Your Majesty; and if you will sign and seal at the foot of this, I shall have but to present my most humble acknowledgements and to set out to execute your orders.”

  As the King was signing, the Cardinal approached him and said a few words in a low voice.

  The King turned to Pronio. “The Cardinal believes,” said he, “that better than anyone you would be able to draw up a proclamation addressed to the people of the two provinces in which you are to command.”

  “His Eminence gives good advice, sire; am I to speak in the King’s name or in my own?”

  “In the King’s name, sir, in the King’s name,” Ruffo hastened to answer.

  Pronio acknowledged this permission, not only to write in his sovereign’s name, but also to seat himself in his presence, with a bow; and without hesitation, without erasure, from a flowing source he wrote:

  “While in the Christian capital of the world, employed in re-establishing the Holy Church, the French, with whom I have done everything to remain at peace, threaten to penetrate into the Abruzzi. I risk my person therefore, in spite of the danger I run crossing their lines to regain my endangered capital; but, once at Naples, I shall march against them with a numerous army to exterminate them. Meanwhile, let the people rush to their arms, let them fly to the aid of religion, let them defend their king, or rather their father, who is ready to sacrifice his life to preserve to his subjects their altars and their goods, the honour of their women and their liberty! Whoever will not repair to the standards of the holy war will be considered a traitor to his country, whoever shall abandon them after having enrolled himself will be punished as a rebel and as an enemy of the Church and State.

  “Rome, 7 December, 1798.”

  Pronio handed his proclamation to the King to read. But he, passing it to the Cardinal, said: “I do not understand very well, my Eminence.”

  Pronio, who had not paid much attention to the expression in the King’s face, as he read, followed with the greatest attention the effect his effort was producing in the Cardinal’s, who, as he read, raised his eyes to Pronio two or three times, and each time saw the new captain’s gaze riveted on him.

  “I was not deceived in you, sir,” said he to Pronio when he had finished; “you are an able man! “Then, addressing the King, “Sire,” continued he, “no one in your kingdom, I venture to say, could have composed such an adroit proclamation, and Your Majesty can sign it boldly, without changing a syllable.” The King signed.

  “And now, sire,” said Ruffo, “while you have the pen in your hand, you can add beneath your signature:

  “Captain Joseph Pronio is authorised, for me and in my name, to distribute this proclamation, and to see that the intentions therein expressed by me be faithfully carried out.”

  The King, without making any objection, wrote the words dictated by Ruffo. “It is done,” he said.

  “Now, sire,” said the Cardinal, “while M. Pronio makes us a copy of this proclamation, Your Majesty will sign a cheque to his order for ten thousand ducats.”

  “Monseigneur!” said Pronio.

  “Ten thousand ducats!... Eh! Eh!” said the King.

  “Sire, I beg Your Majesty.”

  “Very well,” said the King. “On Corradino? “No, on Baker and Co.; it is safer and especially quicker.” The King drew the cheque and signed it.

  “Here is the duplicate of His Majesty’s proclamation,” said Pronio, handing the Cardinal his copy.

  “Now,” said Ruffo to him; “you see the confidence the King puts in you. Here is a cheque for ten thousand ducats; go to a printing office and order as many copies of this proclamation as can be made in twenty-four hours; the first ten thousand will be posted to-day in Naples, if it is-possible before the King arrives. It is mid-day: they can be ready at four o’clock. Take away ten, twenty, thirty thousand; distribute them in abundance, and before to-morrow evening ten thousand will have been spread about!”

  “And what shall I do with the remainder of the money, Monseigneur?”

  “You will buy rifles, powder and shot.” Pronio, at the height of joy, was about to rush from the room.”

  “What!” said Ruffo, “do you not see, captain, that the King gives you his hand to kiss?”

  “Oh! sire!” cried Pronio, kissing it, “the day I die for Your Majesty I shall not be out of your debt.”

  And he went out, ready indeed to die for the King.

  The King evidently wanted him to be gone; he scarcely understood the part he had played throughout this scene. “Well,” said he, when the door shut, “it is still probably San Nicandro’s fault, but devil take me if I understand your enthusiasm for that proclamation, in which there is not a word of truth.”

  “Ah! sire, it is just because of that and because neither Your Majesty nor I would have ventured to do it, that I admire it.”

  “Then,” said Ferdinand, “explain it to me that I may see if it is worth my ten thousand ducats.”

  “Your Majesty would not be rich enough to pay for it, if its full value were paid.”