On a given night she slipped away from her husband’s side, and joined the Canon where he awaited her with a carriage.  They travelled day and night till they reached Castelnuovo, a village within four hours of the journey’s end.  There they were compelled to rest, and there also the husband overtook them.  They were not together at the moment; but the fact of the elopement was patent; and if Franceschini had killed his wife there, in the supposed excitement of the discovery, the law might have dealt leniently with him.  But it suited him best for the time being to let her live.  He procured the arrest of the fugitives, and after a short confinement on the spot, they were conveyed to the New Prisons in Rome (Carceri Nuove) and tried on the charge of adultery.

It is impossible not to believe that Count Guido had been working towards this end.  Pompilia’s verbal communications with Caponsacchi had been supplemented by letters, now brought to him in her name, now thrown or let down from her window as he passed the house.  They were written, as he said, on the subject of the flight, and as he also said, he burned them as soon as read, not doubting their authenticity.  But Pompilia declared, on examination, that she could neither write nor read; and setting aside all presumption of her veracity, this was more than probable.  The writer of the letters must therefore, have been the Count, or some one employed by him for the purpose.  He now completed the intrigue by producing eighteen or twenty more of a very incriminating character, which he declared to have been left by the prisoners at Castelnuovo; and these were not only disclaimed with every appearance of sincerity by both the persons accused, but bore the marks of forgery within themselves.

Pompilia and Caponsacchi answered all the questions addressed to them simply and firmly; and though their statements did not always coincide, these were calculated on the whole to create a moral conviction of their innocence; the facts on which they disagreed being of little weight.  But moral conviction was not legal proof; the question of false testimony does not seem to have been even raised; and the Court found itself in a dilemma, which it acknowledged in the following way:  it was decreed that for his complicity in “the flight and deviation of Francesca Comparini,” and too great intimacy with her, Caponsacchi should be banished for three years to Civita Vecchia; and that Pompilia, on her side, should be relegated, for the time being, to a convent.  That is to say:  the prisoners were pronounced guilty; and a merely nominal punishment was inflicted upon them.