score of a certain levity in her behaviour; and it was rumoured that even during the brief space of their union she had proved a faithless wife.  Yet she contrived to keep Francesco’s confidence, and it is certain that her family profited by their connection with the Peretti.  Of her six brothers, Mario, the eldest, was a favourite courtier of the great Cardinal d’Este.  Ottavio was in orders, and through Montalto’s influence obtained the See of Fossombrone.  The same eminent protector placed Scipione in the service of the Cardinal Sforza.  Camillo, famous for his beauty and his courage, followed the fortunes of Filibert of Savoy, and died in France.  Flaminio was still a boy, dependent, as the sequel of this story shows, upon his sister’s destiny.  Of Marcello, the second in age and most important in the action of this tragedy, it is needful to speak with more particularity.  He was young, and, like the rest of his breed, singularly handsome—­so handsome, indeed, that he is said to have gained an infamous ascendency over the great Duke of Bracciano, whose privy chamberlain he had become.  Marcello was an outlaw for the murder of Matteo Pallavicino, the brother of the Cardinal of that name.  This did not, however, prevent the chief of the Orsini house from making him his favourite and confidential friend.  Marcello, who seems to have realised in actual life the worst vices of those Roman courtiers described for us by Aretino, very soon conceived the plan of exalting his own fortunes by trading on his sister’s beauty.  He worked upon the Duke of Bracciano’s mind so cleverly, that he brought this haughty prince to the point of an insane passion for Peretti’s young wife; and meanwhile so contrived to inflame the ambition of Vittoria and her mother, Tarquinia, that both were prepared to dare the worst of crimes in expectation of a dukedom.  The game was a difficult one to play.  Not only had Francesco Peretti first to be murdered, but the inequality of birth and wealth and station between Vittoria and the Duke of Bracciano rendered a marriage almost impossible.  It was also an affair of delicacy to stimulate without satisfying the Duke’s passion.  Yet Marcello did not despair.  The stakes were high enough to justify great risks; and all he put in peril was his sister’s honour, the fame of the Accoramboni, and the favour of Montalto.  Vittoria, for her part, trusted in her power to ensnare and secure the noble prey both had in view.

Paolo Giordano Orsini, born about the year 1537, was reigning Duke of Bracciano.  Among Italian princes he ranked at least upon a par with the Dukes of Urbino, and his family, by its alliances, was more illustrious than any of that time in Italy.  He was a man of gigantic stature, prodigious corpulence, and marked personal daring; agreeable in manners, but subject to uncontrollable fits of passion, and incapable of self-restraint when crossed in any whim or fancy.  Upon the habit of his body it is needful to insist,