No contemporary writer gives the slightest indication of any suspicion of the possible truth of this audacious inculpation of the widowed princess having existed at the time. It is true, that if such suspicions had existed, they would probably have been deep buried in the hearts of those who conceived them. But all the probabilities of the case plead in favour of Catherine's innocence upon this occasion. Had she wished to rid herself of her young husband, nothing would have been easier than to have made an end of him, privately, quietly, and safely, in the secresy of the fort or of the palace. It is curious to observe, that when subsequently she condescended to point out the absurdity of the accusation, she made use of this argument; remarking, as the historian records it, that "Thank God, neither she nor any of her family had need to apply to common bravoes, when they saw fit to make away with their enemies!" Had she even chosen to employ bravoes for the purpose, with the intention of leaving to them the responsibility of the deed, it might have been done far more safely in the palace than in the street. The latter necessarily involved a very considerable degree of danger of popular tumult, and ever-menacing, ever-near revolution. In the confusion and excitement following the perpetration of such a deed, it may be said to have been merely a toss up which way the popular mind, so easily moved to violence, so prone to change, might turn. There is, indeed, no more curiously suggestive and striking proof of the chronic state of discontent, uneasiness, and discomfort, in which men lived in those good old times, than this wonderful readiness to turn any incident of sufficient interest to make a couple of score of tongues shout together, into an occasion for seeking to change for another the rider mounted on their galled shoulders, at whatsoever almost certain cost of ruin and destruction to them and theirs. Them and theirs;—for another very noticeable trait of Italian social life in those centuries is the great strength of the clannish tie, which made all the members of a family responsible for, and generally partakers in the political crimes of any one among them. The fathers, sons, brothers, uncles of a baffled, detected, or overpowered conspirator, share his fate. Often the females of a family are involved in the condemnation. The whole race is to be rooted out. And such an award seems to have been generally accepted as natural, and to be expected, at least, if not as just, by the suffering party. In most cases the members of a political assassin's family adopted his views, and more or less actively shared his crime. [Sidenote: VENGEANCE.]