An Account of the Facts and Grounds of the Franceschini Case
[Pamphlet 10.]
The property of Pietro Comparini did not amount to more than the sum of 10,000 or 12,000 scudi, subject to a reversionary interest, coupled likewise with the obligation to compound a good percentage of the income. He, therefore, had to live sparingly to avoid being reduced to a state of destitution, there being a bar against his use of the capital and of a part of the income. He was also too indulgent to his stomach and was given to laziness, and furthermore had taken a wife with a very small dowry. Then lawsuits came upon him, the income of his bonds was reduced, and other misfortunes befell him, so that he was brought down to a state poor and miserable enough. So much so that he was several times arrested for debt and, after making a statement of his property, received from the Papal Palace secret alms each month.
When he found himself in such straits, he decided to marry off Francesca Pompilia, his daughter, to some person who would undertake the burden of supporting him together with his wife, Violante Peruzzi, who was a very shrewd woman and of great loquacity. It was with her advice that he had undertaken the affair, and the marriage with Count Guido Franceschini was considered suitable. For when the latter had conducted his new wife and her parents back to Arezzo, his own country, he might be able to find some opportune remedy for their necessities, by the assistance in Rome of Abate Paolo Franceschini his brother, an active and diligent man; thereby putting in order the patrimony of Pietro which had been sequestered and tied up by his creditors. Therefore, when the dowry had been set at twenty-six bonds, with added hope of future succession to the rest of his property by virtue of the reversionary interest to which the wife was entitled, the bargain was accepted. This bargain was advantageous to Pietro and his wife in freeing them from the straits in which they found themselves. And it was likewise advantageous to the Franceschini, as the diligence of the Abate, and some temporary expenditure by their house well attests. For they might well believe that they would gain in time the aforesaid property either entire, or little decreased.
Such from the beginning were the mutual purposes of that unhappy marriage. From this fact one may see how slight a pretext there is for saying that Count Guido, while making the arrangements, had tricked Pietro and his wife by giving an inventory of property with an annual income of 1700 scudi, which income was later proved to be much less, because the primary end for which the marriage was concluded might very well have been obtained by showing a much smaller income. For it is known that when this inventory was shown by Violante to Pietro Comparini, he said on seeing it: “Ho, ho, it would have been enough for me if it had been only half as much.” And indeed it would have been the greatest stupidity in Pietro to have given his daughter a husband, upon the simple inventory of a foreigner and without finding out if this were true, so that the real impelling cause of the marriage had been the resources represented in the said inventory. Not even on the mere grounds of propriety and civility may Guido be reproved; because when the said inventory was produced by Pietro in the trial, the Abate Paolo Franceschini was very much surprised at it, so that he took his brother to task about it by letter, and Guido replied that he had done it at the instigation of Violante. For she desired the completion of the marriage, and, seeing Pietro irresolute, she induced Guido to give the abovesaid inventory, with some modifications, for the purpose of stimulating her husband thereto.
The marriage was finally effected, and they all went back together to the city of Arezzo. Nor were the Comparini mistreated there, as they tried to prove by the unauthoritative deposition of a servant, who had left the house in anger. One mere reading of this deposition is enough to assure one that she did this with a bad motive and at the instigation of others, as she herself has declared to various persons. This deposition shows sickeningly the distasteful prejudice with which it was conceived, and especially where she says that a little sucking lamb was made to serve as food for seven or eight persons throughout an entire week. And there are other matters alike unfit for belief. [The Comparini] were indeed treated with all consideration and decorum, as Monsignor the Bishop and the Governor of the city attest; and they are persons much better qualified to judge and much more worthy of belief than a malign and suborned servant. But you may also have the attestation of one who was serving in that household for thirteen months, during the time when the abovesaid Pietro and Violante were there, and he is able to tell many particulars of the good treatment which they received at the hands of the Franceschini.
It is quite true that disturbances of considerable importance arose in that household; but they were occasioned by the bitter tongue of Pietro and the haughtiness of Violante, his wife. For they laughed at all the proceedings of the Franceschini, and thrusting themselves forward, with pretence of superiority, they brought upon the mother of the Franceschini, and upon the rest of the family, bitter vexations, which were hidden at the time, to avoid violating the laws of hospitality. And notwithstanding all this, when Pietro and his wife decided to return to Rome, as soon as they expressed their wish, they were provided with money for the journey, and in Rome with furniture to put in order the house they had left.
As soon as Pietro and Violante arrived in Rome, a judicial notice was dispatched at the instance of Pietro, in which he declared that Francesca Pompilia was not really his daughter, and that therefore he was not bound to discharge his promise of dowry. To prove this fact, he brought the attestation of his wife Violante. In substance, she declared that for the purpose of keeping her husband’s creditors from their rights, by virtue of the reversionary interest, and also for the purpose of enjoying the income of the bonds, she had feigned that she was pregnant, and then, with the aid of a midwife, that she had brought forth a daughter. This was Francesca Pompilia, who had come of a most vile parentage.
From this blameworthy act made public so suddenly throughout the entire Court, there necessarily arose in the Franceschini an intense hatred toward the authors of it. But they were able to restrain themselves from the due resentment in the hope that if Francesca Pompilia were not indeed the daughter of Pietro and Violante, as was supposed at the time of the espousal, the marriage might be annulled and they might thus purge themselves of such a blot on their reputation. Witnesses of this feeling of theirs are found in the many authorities and experts who were requested by the Franceschini to give thought to that point and to express their opinion of it. But as these did not agree, the Franceschini were unwilling then to commit themselves to so doubtful an undertaking, in the prosecution of which they would necessarily be obliged to presuppose and confess that she was not the child of the Comparini. But by such a confession they would be prejudiced in their interest in the dowry. And therefore they thought well then to pass the matter by that they might avoid exposing themselves to the danger both of losing the dowry and of being unable to nullify the marriage.
Nevertheless they opposed the notice, and obtained for Francesca Pompilia the continuance in quasi-possession of her daughtership and a decree for the transfer of the dowry bonds. But Pietro appealed from the decree, and the case was continued in the Segnatura di Giustizia. This was followed by the copious distribution of pamphlets throughout Rome, which had been printed by Pietro to the very grave injury of the honour of the Franceschini, not to say to their infamy. But the latter were able to restrain the just resentment of their irritated minds by cherishing the hope of making the court acknowledge (as did follow), no less the falsehood of their adversaries than their own truth. Supported by this hope, they subsequently bore with all patience the many insults planned against them by various cliques, and the twists and turns for hindering the transfer of the dowry bonds, the Comparini having trumped up various creditors, whether real or pretended. On account of this opposition, the Franceschini were made to feel the inconvenience and expense of that transfer. Nor have they had any benefit of the income; of which they have been able to obtain not even a two months’ payment.
To such a pitch had the affairs of the two parties come, when Guido, waking up one morning, found that his wife was not in bed. As soon as he arose, he found that his jewel-box had been rifled and his wife had fled. Nor was the suspicion lacking that she had given an opiate to Guido and the entire household the preceding evening; and it was thought that this had happened at the suggestion of Pietro and Violante, as he had more than once heard threats of it. He travelled quickly along the way to Rome, and after a headlong journey he overtook his fugitive wife, in company with Canon Caponsacchi of Arezzo, at the inn of Castelnuovo. And as he was alone and unarmed, and they were armed and resolute, he saw that he was unequal to avenging that excess. He therefore thought it well to have them arrested by applying to the authorities of the said place. The court had both of the fugitives captured by the police. They were consigned to the jurisdiction of Monsignor the Governor of Rome, and were then conducted to the New Prisons.
The Fisc, indeed, makes much out of the particular that Franceschini should have avenged his insults in the act of overtaking them; but, as an adequate response, one should think of the impossibility of his carrying out his revenge because of their precaution in the matter of arms, for Franceschini had heard along the way that the fugitives were travelling armed. In proof of this, also, when his wife saw her husband she had the hardihood to thrust at his life with bare sword. For this reason it was prudent moderation to check their flight then by arresting them. And this was all the more true because the adultery of his wife had not then been proved, and possibly he had a repugnance against imbuing his hands with the blood of her whom he had often held in his arms, as long as any hope was left alive of regaining his reputation in any other way than by her murder.
But afterward there were found the mutual love-letters of the same fugitives, barefaced and immodest and preparatory to flight. And from the cross-examination of the driver it became evident that during their journey in the carriage they had done nothing else than kiss each other impurely. And from the deposition of the host at Castelnuovo, Guido found out that both of them had slept in the same chamber. Finally, from the sentence or decree of the court in condemnation of the Canon Caponsacchi to banishment to Civita Vecchia for three years, for “having carnally known Francesca,” the notoriety and publicity of this adultery followed. Let any one who has the sense of honour consider in what straits and perturbations of mind poor Guido found himself, since even the very reasonless animals detest and abominate the contamination of their conjugal tie, with all the ferocity that natural instinct can suggest. They not only avenge the immodesty of their companions by the death of the adulterer, but they also avenge the outrages and injuries done to the reputation of their masters. For Elian in his Natural History tells of an elephant which avenged adultery for its master by the death of the wife and the adulterer found together in the act of adultery. And there are other examples also, as Tiraquelli cites. [Citation.]
But returning to the series of events, it must be stated that, after the imprisonment of the fugitives, Guido also came on to Rome and was deeply affected and, as it were, delirious because of the excesses of his wife. He was comforted by his good friends with the hope that this attempt at flight, taken along with the lack of decent parentage of Francesca (under supposition of which he had contracted the marriage) would facilitate the dissolution of that marriage, and in that way all the blots upon his reputation would be cancelled. Hence, with this hope he returned to his own country, leaving the management of the affair to the Abate, his brother. The Secretary of Sacred Assembly of the Council may be a witness of this; for Abate Paolo presented the matter to him and entreated him to propose, in that sacred assembly, this point of law as to the validity of the marriage then—that is, after a criminal sentence in the Tribunal of Monsignor the Governor, had been obtained.
In the meanwhile the same Abate attended to the plan of petitioning the conclusion of the said criminal cause. When Pompilia, to avoid conviction by the love-letters, had recourse to the falsehood that she did not know how to write, it was easy for the Abate to convict her of that lie by showing the marriage agreement signed with her own hand, as well as by a Cardinal now dead, by means of the recognition of the handwriting. But in spite of this, when the merits of the case had been made known everywhere, the same Abate perceived that instead of his being pitied, little by little every one began to laugh at him and to deride him, as he has told several persons. Perchance the attempt was being made to introduce into Rome the power of sinning against the laws of God with impunity, along with the doctrine of Molinos and philosophic sin, which has been checked by the authority of the Holy Office. So many persons would desire to blot out from the minds of men their esteem of honour and of reputation in order that they might sin with impunity against the laws of men and might give opportunity to adulterers without any check from disgrace or shame.
And it is certain that the Abate, seeing the cause unduly protracted, had just grounds for placing it at the feet of our Lord [the Pope], with a memorial in which he declared that he could no longer endure such important and such various litigation and vexation arising from that luckless marriage, and he prayed that a special sitting be appointed for all the cases—that is the ones concerning her daughtership, her flight, her adultery, the dowry, and others growing out of the marriage as well as the one concerning its annulling. But he had no other reply than: “The matter rests with the Judges.” So, with devout resignation to His Holiness, he awaited the outcome of the said criminal trial, from which he hoped to regain, at least in part, the reputation of his house.
In the meantime, Pietro Comparini was supplied with plenty of money by the generosity of some unknown person, possibly a lover of the young girl. He vaunted his triumph boldly in the throngs and the shops, places of his accustomed resort, and he praised the resolution and spirit of his daughter for having known how to trick the Franceschini with a disgraceful flight and with the thievery of such precious things, and for having found an expedient to give to the judge in the trial such good replies with all details thereof. He also boasted that in a little while she would return to his home despite the Franceschini. For he would bring so many lawsuits and scandals upon them that they would be forced to be silent and to let matters run on. For these statements we can have the attestations of many persons, in case they are needed. Therefore, because of such stinging boasts and such irritations, the mind of Guido was ever more embittered in spite of all the power he could master for restraining the impetus of his anger which had been provoked by such injuries.
Francesca Pompilia had been previously transferred from the prisons into the Refuge called della Scalette, where she stayed for some months. Then it was discovered that she was pregnant, and many attempts were made to secure an abortion. For this purpose, powders and other drugs were given several times by the mother. As this proved useless, she was remanded to the home of Pietro and Violante on the pretext of an obstruction and the necessity of relieving herself. There, at the approach of the physicians, her pregnancy was discovered. The truth is, that when her womb began to grow, the nuns did not wish for her confinement to take place within their walls, and therefore a pretext was found for removing her on the grounds of the said obstruction and the necessity of removing it.
Now at this point the Abate found it necessary to break the bonds of his forbearance: for although it was indirectly that he was offended, that is, in the person and honour of his brother, nevertheless it seemed to him that every man’s face had become a looking-glass, in which was mirrored the image of the ridicule of his house. Therefore, being humiliated, though he was strong and constant in other matters, he often burst into bitterest tears, until he felt very much inclined to throw himself into the river, as he indeed declared to all his friends. And to free himself from such imminent danger, he decided to abandon Rome, the Court, his hopes and possessions, his affectionate and powerful patrons, and whatever property he had accumulated during thirty years in the same City. Any one may imagine with what pain he parted from these and went to a strange and unknown clime, where he would not meet the fierceness of his scorners, who had been merited neither by himself nor his household.
But the injury of Guido, arising from a sharper and severer wound, within his very vitals as a husband, had the power to arouse his anger even to the extreme. Nor did he consider it sufficient redress to punish himself with voluntary exile for the crimes of others; for such a resolution might be considered by the world as a plain proof of his weakness and cowardice. He soon had sure information that, during the month of December, Pompilia had given birth to a boy in the home of the Comparini, which child had been intrusted secretly to a nurse. He also heard that the infamy of the friendship with the said Canon had been continued, inasmuch as he was received as a guest into the said home (as was said). For like a vulture, Caponsacchi wheeled round and round those walls, that he might put beak and talons into the desired flesh for the increase of Guido’s disgrace. Guido accordingly felt the wildest commotion in his blood, which urged him to find refuge for himself even in the most desperate of determinations.
In the meantime he turned over again and again, as in delirium, his sinister thoughts, reflecting that he was abhorred by his friends, avoided by his relatives, and pointed at with the finger of scorn by every one in his own country. And the word went abroad that in Rome they were selling his reputation at an infamous market. (This matter has moved the treasurer of the Convertites, since the death of Pompilia, to begin proceedings and to take possession of her property.) Added to the above were the continual rebukes which he received because of his lost honour, so that he became utterly drunk with fury. He left Arezzo with desperate thoughts, and when he had reached Rome he went to that home which was the asylum of his disgraces. Nor could he have any doubt how much the very name of the adulterer was respected; for when Guido made pretence of delivering a letter of his sending, the doors were immediately thrown open; and so, scarcely had he set his foot upon the threshold, before he saw his dishonour proving itself before his very face; of which dishonour he had heretofore had only a distant impression in his imagination. Then bold and triumphant, he no longer feared to upbraid her with unmasked face for all the insults which had been inflicted upon his honour in that household; and as he looked all around at those walls incrusted with his heaviest insults, and with his infamy, the dams of his reason gave way and he fell headlong into that miserable ruin of plunging himself with deadly catastrophe into the blood of the oppressors of his reputation.
There is no doubt that Franceschini has committed the crime of a desperate man, and that his mind, when it was so furious, was totally destitute of reason. As he had lost his property, his wife, and his honour, there was nothing else for him to lose unless it were his miserable life. For, as Paolo Zacchia, the learned philosopher and jurist, says in speaking of anger in man: “Such and so great is its force that it does not differ at all from insanity and fury.” Galenus very clearly affirms this, adding that when in law it is known that crimes are committed in such a state, they are punished with a smaller penalty, even though it has to do with the very atrocious crime of parricide. Calder [Citation] also gives many other matters on our point in No. 27 and the following numbers. And these theoretic propositions are verified in actual practice in Guido; for he was so utterly mad and void of reason that he entered upon so great an undertaking even at an hour of the night when many people were around. And after that he took no precaution, such as any other person of sound mind would have taken in governing his actions. He set out by the high road on his journey of about seventy miles from the outskirts of the city without providing any vehicles, as if he were merely a traveller leaving Rome. These circumstances are plain evidences of an offended and delirious mind. [Citations.] St. Jerome writes in his letters:
“Where honour is absent, there is contempt; and where contempt is, there is recurring insult; and where insult, there indignation; and where indignation, there is no quiet; and where quiet is wanting, there the mind is often thrown from its balance.”
Nor in this case does the legal distinction enter as to whether the one driven by anger committed the crime in the first impulse of anger, or after an interval of time. For this distinction might have a place when the anger arose from an insult in some transitory deed, and one that was not permanent. But in the case we are treating, the insult provocative of anger consisted of frequent and reiterated acts; that is, not so much in the passing of the wife from the nunnery to the home of Pietro under an empty and ridiculous pretence, but still more from her staying in the said home with the aggravating circumstance of his own infamy (as has been said above). Accordingly, as the injury is permanent because of the continual affronts which the injured one received, so the vengeance is understood to be taken immediately and without any interval. This the defenders of the cause have sufficiently proved in their no less erudite than learned writings with their very strong arguments and their unsurpassable learning.
Nor does it amount to anything for one to say that the crime was aggravated, first, by the kind of arms used; for Virgil [A. I. 150] says: Furor arma ministrat; nor, secondly, by the company of four, or let us say the conventicle; nor, thirdly, by the place, the excess, or the other circumstances considered by the Fisc. For in a madman, everything is excusable, as it is axiomatic and a very sure principle that nature then arises in such a way that it drives a man from himself, in whatever manner is possible, etc. In conformity therewith, Fracosto speaks as follows: “And in truth an ingenuous mind, and one that knows the value of its own honour and reputation, is very painfully offended in a part so sensitive and so delicate; and at such a time reaches the limit of madness and of desperation; for it has lost the light of reason, and in delirium and frenzy cannot be satisfied even if it succeed in turning upside down, if that were possible, the very hinges of the Universe, for the purpose of annihilating not merely the authors but the places and the memory of its insults and shames. For “the rage and fury of a man does not spare in the day of vengeance, nor does it grant the prayers of any, nor does it accept in requital many gifts,” as the Holy Spirit speaks on this point, through the mouth of Solomon, in the sixth chapter of Proverbs, at the end. With this very well agrees what St. Bernard has very learnedly written in his letter to his nephew Robert at the beginning: “Anger indeed does not deliberate very much, nor has it a sense of shame, nor does it follow reason, nor fear the loss of dignity, nor obey the law, nor acquiesce in its judgment, and ignores all method and order.”
There is no doubt that Samson reached this pitch when he fell into the power of his enemies. He suffered with an intrepid mind the loss of his eyes and other grievous disasters, but when he saw that he was destined to serve as a pastime in public places, and when he there heard the jeers and derision of the people, the anger in his breast was inflamed, so that, all madness and fury, he cried out: “Let me die along with the Philistines.” And giving a shake to the columns which sustained the palace he reduced it to ruin: “And he killed many more in his death than he had killed while alive,” as the Holy Scripture testifies. And Christ himself, although he was very mild, and had the greatest patience while receiving opprobrium and insults without ever complaining, yet answered, when he knew that his honour was touched, “My honour I will give to no one.” And it is certain that any one who cares for honour and reputation would rather die an honoured man beneath mannaia than live for many ages in the face of the world with shame and dishonour.
This argument, strong as it is, has succeeded in weakening one wise and earnest adherent of the Fisc. And this is why the very learned pen of Monsignor of the Fisc has uttered the following period, which says:
“But because the Comparini claimed that the furnishing of food to Francesca while in prison was the duty of Franceschini, and the latter declared that it belonged to the Comparini, the Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord Governor, after having the consent of Abate Paolo, own brother of Guido, and his representative in the case, assigned the home of the same Comparini to Francesca as a safe and secure prison under security.” But this fact can be clearly explained so that it will not form an objection.
When Francesca Pompilia was about to be taken from the prison to the nunnery, Abate Franceschini was asked to provide the food, with the statement that if he refused there would appear a third and unknown person who would assume the burden of it to their dishonour. Therefore the Abate wished once for all to put an end to any chance of receiving new insults; and to avoid every charge of preserving even the slightest sign of relation with this disgraceful sister-in-law, accepted a middle way proposed to him, namely, that Lamparelli, as Procurator of Charity, should make provision for it by the disbursement of his own funds and should pay it back again by what reasonably belonged to the Franceschini; for he reimbursed himself for it with the money which had been found upon the fugitives, and which had been stolen from the husband; at her capture, this money was placed on deposit in the office, where there remained so much of it still that, after all was over, the balance of it was consigned to the same Abate.
And as when the said Francesca was transferred from the nunnery to the home of Violante, all the preceding and succeeding circumstances made it very improbable that the Abate gave his consent, and as this consent is not found registered among those acts, it seems very clear that it was not given at all. Nor could he legally give it, for he was not the representative of his brother in that matter; for his authorisation confined him solely to the power of receiving back the money and other things which were deposited in the office. This is proved by his acts and by the story which the Abate then gave to his friends and relatives; and it utterly destroys the assertion of the Fisc, since Abate Paolo says that he was indeed notified that the young woman was obliged to find relief in an indisposition, certified by a physician, and that she was obliged to leave the nunnery and to go back to her father’s home. To this, as it seemed a mere pretence, he replied that he could easily undertake to purge the wife in the nunnery without exposing her to such evident danger of greater shame. He also said that he wondered very much that the affection of a father had so suddenly returned in Pietro Comparini for Pompilia, whom he and his wife had so often denied as their daughter. He wondered how they could both be, and not be, the parents of the said woman, according to their own desires to the injury of the house of Franceschini.
And if the solicitor, for the purpose of giving colour to the honour of the said lady, has falsely urged many justifications, it is to be noted that in substance all that he says on that point is founded on what with her own mouth she has said in her own favour and what she has proffered to free herself from the blame of her sins, both at this juncture and in the flight, as well as in the trial which may be referred to; in fact, quite the contrary is evident; and from the external tests which the Convertites intended to make, but from which they abstained when they heard the news of the birth of the son. And would that it had pleased God that she had observed the laws of holy modesty! for in that case so great a misfortune would not have resulted from her whims. We should notice, further, that the declaration made by the wife in the face of death may be doubtful in itself, in the sense that after confession and absolution one’s sin is cancelled as if it had never been committed, so that in a court of justice she would no longer have any need of pardon. Therefore, from the above-cited circumstances and very strong reasons, there is no room to doubt that Franceschini deserves the indulgence which the laws give to excesses that find origin from the stings of honour. And, if we were within the circumstances under which the case ought to be adjudged according to expediency, without any hesitation, Franceschini should be punished mildly to diminish the force of immodesty and impudence. For the woman is not without adherents, who triumph throughout all Rome in a coterie of treachery, both in public and in private. This is for the oppression and derision against husbands who have regard for their reputation. And they give the title of pedantry to that circumspection which one ought to practise for the preservation of his own honour.
By the Most Illustrious and Most
Reverend Lord Governor of the
City in Criminal Cases:
ROMAN MURDER-CASE
with qualifying circumstance.
For the Fisc, against Count Guido Franceschini
and his Associates.
Summary.
At Rome, in the type of the Reverend Apostolic Chamber,
1698.