We have conflicting testimony as to the cause of this rupture.  The Governor of Arezzo, writing to the Abate Paul in Rome, lays all the blame of it on the Comparini, whom he taxes with vulgar and aggressive behaviour; and Mr. Browning readily admits that at the beginning there may have been faults on their side.  But popular judgment, as well as the balance of evidence, were in favour of the opposite view; and curious details are given by Pompilia and by a servant of the family, a sworn witness on Pompilia’s trial, of the petty cruelties and privations to which both parents and child were subjected.

So much, at all events, was clear; Violante’s sin had overtaken her; and it now occurred to her, apparently for the first time, to cast off its burden by confession.  The moment was propitious, for the Pope had proclaimed a jubilee in honour of his eightieth year, and absolution was to be had for the asking.  But the Church in this case made conditions.  Absolution must be preceded by atonement.  Violante must restore to her legal heirs that of which her pretended motherhood had defrauded them.  The first step towards this was to reveal the fraud to her husband; and Pietro lost no time in making use of the revelation.  He repudiated Pompilia, and with her all claims on her husband’s part.  The case was carried into court.  The Court decreed a compromise.  Pietro appealed from the decree, and the question remained unsettled.

The chief sufferer by these proceedings was Pompilia herself.  She already had reason to dread her husband as a tyrant—­he to dislike her as a victim; and his discovery of her base birth, with the threatened loss of the greater part of her dowry, could only result, with such a man, in increased aversion towards her.  From this moment his one aim seems to have been to get rid of his wife, but in such a manner as not to forfeit any pecuniary advantage he might still derive from their union.  This could only be done by convicting her of infielity; and he attacked her so furiously, and so persistently, on the subject of a certain Canon Giuseppe Caponsacchi, whom she barely knew, but whose attentions he declared her to have challenged, that at last she fled from Arezzo, with this very man.

She had appealed for protection against her husband’s violence to the Archbishop and to the Governor.  She had striven to enlist the aid of his brother-in-law, Conti.  She had implored a priest in confession to write for her to her parents, and induce them to fetch her away.  But the whole town was in the interest of the Franceschini, or in dread of them.  Her prayers were useless, and Caponsacchi, whom she had heard of as a “resolute man,” appeared her last resource.  He was, as she knew, contemplating a journey to Rome; an opportunity presented itself for speaking to him from her window, or her balcony; and she persuaded him, though not without difficulty, to assist her escape, and conduct her to her old home.