Here my mother fainted and shook like an aspen leaf.  But God gave me strength, and I said in a moment that as his reverence thought my sins so great, I would not go to any man, no, not even to the Pope; I would go to God alone, and leave my cause in his hands, life or death.  “Therefore, reverend sir, I shall save you from all further trouble in attending the confessional any more on my account.  From henceforth no earthly power shall drag me alive and with my consent to the tribunal of penance.”

“Woman!” exclaimed the priest furiously, “are you mad?  There are ten thousand devils in you, and we must drive them out by some means.”  After this discharge of priestly venom, the priest left in a rage giving the door a terrible slam, which awoke my mother from her sorrowful trance.  During the whole conversation, such was the electrical power of the priest over my mother’s weak and nervous system, that if she attempted to say a word in my behalf, the keen, snakish black eye of the priest would at once make her tremble and quail before him, and the half uttered word would remain silent on her lips.  The priest went at once in search of my father.  He came home boiling over with rage, saying he wished I had never been born.  He cursed the day of my birth.  The cause of all this paternal fury upon my poor devoted head was the foul misrepresentations of my father confessor, who was now in league with the Bishop, both determined to shut me up in a prison convent, or end my mortal career.

My poor mother remained mute and heart-broken.  My sweet mother; never did she utter one word of unkindness to me; her very look to the last was one of gentleness and love.  But my father loved honor and reputation amongst men above all other things.  The idea of being the father of an accursed heretic, tormented his pride, and he being suspected of heresy himself caused him to be forsaken by many of his proud friends and acquaintances.  He was even insulted in the streets by the numerous Lazaroni, with the epithet of Maldito Corrobonari, so that I lost my father’s love.  And when the confessor told him there was no other way to save me from hell than an entire life of penance in a convent, he heartily and freely gave his consent.  Mother, my own sweet mother, my only remaining friend, turned as pale as death, but was enabled to say a word in my behalf.

I saw that my earthly doom was sealed; there was not a single voice in all Naples to save me from imprisonment for life.  Not a tongue in four hundred thousand that would dare speak one word in my behalf.  Father commanded me to get ready to leave his house forever that very night, saying the carriage and confessor would be on hand to take me away at eight o’clock P.M., by moonlight.  I got on my knees and begged my father as a last request that he would allow me to remain three days with my mother, but he refused.  Said he, “That is now beyond my power.  Not an hour can you remain after eight o’clock.”