Such was my position-truly a brilliant one, when, on Christmas Day, the lover of Barbara Dalacqua entered my room, locked the door, and threw himself on the sofa, exclaiming that I saw him for the last time.

“I only come to beg of you some good advice.”

“On what subject can I advise you?”

“Take this and read it; it will explain everything.”

It was a letter from his mistress; the contents were these: 

“I am pregnant of a child, the pledge of our mutual love; I can no longer have any doubt of it, my beloved, and I forewarn you that I have made up my mind to quit Rome alone, and to go away to die where it may please God, if you refuse to take care of me and save me.  I would suffer anything, do anything, rather than let my father discover the truth.”

“If you are a man of honour,” I said, “you cannot abandon the poor girl.  Marry her in spite of your father, in spite of her own, and live together honestly.  The eternal Providence of God will watch over you and help you in your difficulties:” 

My advice seemed to bring calm to his mind, and he left me more composed.

At the beginning of January, 1744, he called again, looking very cheerful.  “I have hired,” he said, “the top floor of the house next to Barbara’s dwelling; she knows it, and to-night I will gain her apartment through one of the windows of the garret, and we will make all our arrangements to enable me to carry her off.  I have made up my mind; I have decided upon taking her to Naples, and I will take with us the servant who, sleeping in the garret, had to be made a confidante of.”

“God speed you, my friend!”

A week afterwards, towards eleven o’clock at night, he entered my room accompanied by an abbe.

“What do you want so late?”

“I wish to introduce you to this handsome abbe.”

I looked up, and to my consternation I recognized Barbara.

“Has anyone seen you enter the house?” I enquired.

“No; and if we had been seen, what of it?  It is only an abbe.  We now pass every night together.”

“I congratulate you.”

“The servant is our friend; she has consented to follow us, and all our arrangements are completed.”

“I wish you every happiness.  Adieu.  I beg you to leave me.”

Three or four days after that visit, as I was walking with the Abbe Gama towards the Villa Medicis, he told me deliberately that there would be an execution during the night in the Piazza di Spagna.

“What kind of execution?”

“The bargello or his lieutenant will come to execute some ’ordine santissimo’, or to visit some suspicious dwelling in order to arrest and carry off some person who does not expect anything of the sort.”

“How do you know it?”

“His eminence has to know it, for the Pope would not venture to encroach upon his jurisdiction without asking his permission.”