THE CRIME CONFESSED. 215 



Five physicians declared that she had not died of poison, 

 for the signs of it were wanting on the tongue, and about 

 the extremities ; her body was not black, her belly was not 

 tumid, neither her hair nor her nails had fallen off, and there 

 was internally no erosion. Against that conclusion people 

 set the facts in evidence and the circumstance that the 

 accused was a member of the College of Physicians, of 

 which the respectability would be in some degree tainted 

 by his conviction. Evangelista Seroni and the three 

 brothers of the deceased were also the bitterest of prose- 

 cutors. 



One day when Gianbatista had been imprisoned for 

 about three weeks, during which Jerome had been strain- 

 ing all energies on his behalf, the old man was studying 

 in the library of some friends with whom he was then 

 staying in Milan, the Palavicini, and while he was so sitting 

 there sounded in his ear some tones as of the voice of a 

 priest consoling wretched men who are upon the verge of 

 death. " My heart was opened," he says 1 , " torn asunder, 

 broken. I leapt wildly out into the court-yard where 

 some of my friends stood, .well knowing how much hope 

 there was for my son's rescue if he had not pleaded guilty 

 to the crime, or if he was really innocent. ' Woe is me,' I 

 cried, ' for he is guilty of his wife's death, and now he has 

 confessed it and will be condemned and fall under the 

 1 De Vita Propria, cap. xxxvii. for this incident 



