"You will disguise yourself as a contadino in easy circumstances, you will get out of Parma as best you can, hire a sediola and proceed as quickly as possible to Bologna.
You will enter Bologna as a casual visitor and by the Florence gate, and you will deliver to Fabrizio, who is at the Pellegrino, a packet which Cecchina will give you.
Fabrizio is in hiding, and is known there as Signor Giuseppe Bossi; do not give him away by any stupid action, do not appear to know him; my enemies will perhaps set spies on your track.
Fabrizio will send you back here after a few hours or a few days: and it is on your return journey especially that you must use every precaution not to give him away."
"Ah!
Marchesa Raversi's people!" cried the postilion. "We are on the look-out for them, and if the Signora wished, they would soon be exterminated."
"Some other day, perhaps; but don't, as you value your life, do anything without orders from me."
It was a copy of the Prince's note which the Duchessa wished to send to Fabrizio; she could not resist the pleasure of making him amused, and added a word about the scene which had led up to the note; this word became a letter of ten pages.
She had the postilion called back.
"You cannot start," she told him, "before four o'clock, when the gates are opened."
"I was thinking of going out by the big conduit; I should be up to my neck in water, but I should get through… ."
"No," said the Duchessa, "I do not wish to expose one of my most faithful servants to the risk of fever.
Do you know anyone in the Archbishop's household?"
"The second coachman is a friend of mine."
"Here is a letter for that saintly prelate; make your way quietly into his Palace, get them to take you to his valet; I do not wish Monsignore to be awakened.
If he has retired to his room, spend the night in the Palace, and, as he is in the habit of rising at dawn, to-morrow morning, at four o'clock, have yourself announced as coming from me, ask the holy Archbishop for his blessing, hand him the packet you see here, and take the letters that he will perhaps give you for Bologna."
The Duchessa addressed to the Archbishop the actual original of the Prince's note; as this note concerned his First Grand Vicar, she begged him to deposit it among the archives of the Palace, where she hoped that their Reverences the Grand Vicars and Canons, her nephew's colleagues, would be so good as to acquaint themselves with its contents; the whole transaction to be kept in the most profound secrecy.
The Duchessa wrote to Monsignor Landriani with a familiarity which could not fail to charm that honest plebeian; the signature alone filled three lines; the letter, couched in the most friendly tone, was followed by the words: Angelina-Cornelia-lsotta Valserra del Dongo, Duchessa Sanseverina.
"I don't believe I have signed all that," the Duchessa said to herself, "since my marriage contract with the poor Duca; but one only gets hold of those people with that sort of thing, and in the eyes of the middle classes the caricature looks like beauty."
She could not bring the evening to an end without yielding to the temptation to write to the poor Conte; she announced to him officially, for his guidance, she said, in his relations with crowned heads, that she did not feel herself to be capable of amusing a Minister in disgrace.
"The Prince frightens you; when you are no longer in a position to see him, will it be my business to frighten you?"
She had this letter taken to him at once.
For his part, that morning at seven o'clock, the Prince sent for Conte Zurla, the Minister of the Interior.
"Repeat," he told him, "the strictest orders to every podesta to have Signor Fabrizio del Dongo arrested.
We are informed that possibly he may dare to reappear in our States.
This fugitive being now at Bologna, where he seems to defy the judgement of our tribunals, post the sbirri who know him by sight: (1) in the villages on the road from Bologna to Parma; (2) in the neighbourhood of Duchessa Sanseverina's castello at Sacca, and of her house at Castelnuovo; (3) round Conte Mosca's castello.
I venture to hope from your great sagacity, Signor Conte, that you will manage to keep all knowledge of these, your Sovereign's orders, from the curiosity of Conte Mosca.
Understand that I wish Signor Fabrizio del Dongo to be arrested."
As soon as the Minister had left him, a secret door introduced into the Prince's presence the Fiscal General, Rassi, who came towards him bent double, and bowing at every step.
The face of this rascal was a picture; it did full justice to the infamy of the part he had to play, and, while the rapid and extravagant movements of his eyes betrayed his consciousness of his own merits, the arrogant and grimacing assurance of his mouth showed that he knew how to fight against contempt.
As this personage is going to acquire a considerable influence over Fabrizio's destiny, we may say a word here about him.
He was tall, he had fine eyes that shewed great intelligence, but a face ruined by smallpox; as for brains, he had them in plenty, and of the finest quality; it was admitted that he had an exhaustive knowledge of the law, but it was in the quality of resource that he specially shone.
Whatever the aspect in which a case might be laid before him, he easily and in a few moments discovered the way, thoroughly well founded in law, to arrive at a conviction or an acquittal; he was above all a past-master of the hair-splittings of a prosecutor.
In this man, whom great Monarchs might have envied the Prince of Parma, one passion only was known to exist: he loved to converse with eminent personages and to please them by buffooneries.
It mattered little to him whether the powerful personage laughed at what he said or at his person, or uttered revolting pleasantries at the expense of Signora Rassi; provided that he saw the great man laugh and was himself treated as a familiar, he was content.
Sometimes the Prince, at a loss how further to insult the dignity of this Chief Justice, would actually kick him; if the kicks hurt him, he would begin to cry.
But the instinct of buffoonery was so strong in him that he might be seen every day frequenting the drawing-room of a Minister who scoffed at him, in preference to his own drawing-room where he exercised a despotic rule over all the stuff gowns of the place.
This Rassi had above all created for himself a place apart, in that it was impossible for the most insolent noble to humiliate him; his method of avenging himself for the insults which he had to endure all day long was to relate them to the Prince, in whose presence he had acquired the privilege of saying anything; it is true that the reply often took the form of a well-directed cuff, which hurt him, but he stood on no ceremony about that.
The presence of this Chief Justice used to distract the Prince in his moments of ill-humour; then he amused himself by outraging him.
It can be seen that Rassi was almost the perfect courtier: a man without honour and without humour.
"Secrecy is essential above all things," the Prince shouted to him without greeting him, treating him, in fact, exactly as he would have treated a scullion, he who was so polite to everybody. "From when is your sentence dated?"
"Serene Highness, from yesterday morning."
"By how many judges is it signed?"
"By all five."
"And the penalty?"
"Twenty years in a fortress, as Your Serene Highness told me."
"The death penalty would have given offence," said the Prince, as though speaking to himself; "it is a pity!
What an effect on that woman!
But he is a del Dongo, and that name is revered in Parma, on account of the three Archbishops, almost in direct sequence… .
You say twenty years in a fortress?"