“Now I know, beyond any doubt,” said the Marchesa, “that the favoured lover, Fabrizio, is at Bologna or in the immediate neighbourhood. …”
“I am too unwell,” cried Conte Baldi, interrupting her; “I ask as a favour to be excused this second journey, or at least I should like to have a few days’ rest to recover my health.”
“I shall go and plead your cause,” said Riscara.
He rose and spoke in an undertone to the Marchesa.
“Oh, very well, then, I consent,” she replied with a smile. “Reassure yourself, you shall not go at all,” she told Baldi, with a certain air of contempt.
“Thank you,” he cried in heartfelt accents. In the end, Riscara got into a post-chaise by himself. He had scarcely been a couple of days in Bologna when he saw, in an open carriage, Fabrizio and little Marietta. “The devil!” he said to himself, “it seems, our future Archbishop doesn’t let the time hang on his hands; we must let the Duchessa know about this, she will be charmed.” Riscara had only to follow Fabrizio to discover his address; next morning our hero received from a courier the letter forged at Genoa; he thought it a trifle short, but apart from that suspected nothing. The thought of seeing the Duchessa and Conte again made him wild with joy, and in spite of anything Lodovico might say he took a post-horse and went off at a gallop. Without knowing it, he was followed at a short distance by Cavaliere Riscara, who on coming to a point six leagues from Parma, at the stage before Castelnuovo, had the satisfaction of seeing a crowd on the piazza outside the local prison; they had just led in our hero, recognised at the post-house, as he was changing horses, by two sbirri who had been selected and sent there by Conte Zurla.
Cavaliere Riscara’s little eyes sparkled with joy; he informed himself, with exemplary patience, of everything that had occurred in this little village, then sent a courier to the Marchesa Raversi. After which, roaming the streets as though to visit the church, which was of great interest, and then to look for a picture by the Parmigianino which, he had been told, was to be found in the place, he finally ran into the podestà, who was obsequious in paying his respects to a Councillor of State. Riscara appeared surprised that he had not immediately dispatched to the citadel of Parma the conspirator whose arrest he had had the good fortune to secure.
“There is reason to fear,” Riscara added in an indifferent tone, “that his many friends, who were endeavouring, the day before yesterday, to facilitate his passage through the States of His Highness, may come into conflict with the police; there were at least twelve or fifteen of these rebels, mounted.”
“Intelligenti pauca!” cried the podestà with a cunning air.
XV
A couple of hours later, the unfortunate Fabrizio, fitted with handcuffs and actually attached by a long chain to the sediola into which he had been made to climb, started for the citadel of Parma, escorted by eight constables. These had orders to take with them all the constables stationed in the villages through which the procession had to pass; the podestà in person followed this important prisoner. About seven o’clock in the evening the sediola, escorted by all the little boys in Parma and by thirty constables, came down the fine avenue of trees, passed in front of the little palazzo in which Fausta had been living a few months earlier, and finally presented itself at the outer gate of the citadel just as General Fabio Conti and his daughter were coming out. The governor’s carriage stopped before reaching the drawbridge to make way for the sediola to which Fabrizio was attached; the General instantly shouted for the gates to be shut, and hastened down to the turnkey’s office to see what was the matter; he was not a little surprised when he recognised the prisoner, who had grown quite stiff after being fastened to his sediola throughout such a long journey; four constables had lifted him down and were carrying him into the turnkey’s office. “So I have in my power,” thought the feather-pated governor, “that famous Fabrizio del Dongo, with whom anyone would say that for the last year the high society of Parma had taken a vow to occupy themselves exclusively!”
The General had met him a score of times at court, at the Duchessa’s and elsewhere; but he took good care not to show any sign that he knew him; he was afraid of compromising himself.
“Have a report made out,” he called to the prison clerk, “in full detail of the surrender made to me of the prisoner by his worship the podestà of Castelnuovo.”
Barbone, the clerk, a terrifying personage owing to the volume of his beard and his martial bearing, assumed an air of even greater importance than usual; one would have called him a German gaoler. Thinking he knew that it was chiefly the Duchessa Sanseverina who had prevented his master from becoming Minister of War, he
