My relinquishing the Dominican Order was the signal for numerous desertions. Many of my friends were not slow to follow my example; among them I may mention two celebrated men, the Rev. Father Talia and the Rev. Father Borgetti; equally respected on account of their years and their learning, as for their personal probity. Neither will I conceal the name of another, for whom I had the sincerest regard; the Rev. Giovanni Martucci, who at that period, although very young, was Professor of Natural Philosophy. These persons, disgusted, like myself, at the falsehood with which they were surrounded, no sooner saw me throw off the cloistral habit, than they, also, demanded their rescript, and quitted the Neapolitan brotherhood. The worthy old men wept for joy, that the Lord had graciously, before their death, liberated them from the society of the prevaricators. I remember Father Talia, who was exceedingly esteemed among the clergy of Naples, expressed himself in the following terms before the Cardinal Archbishop:-- "I do not believe your Eminence will suppose that I am actuated by an overweening desire for liberty, in emancipating myself from the Order of these monks; I would rather persuade you that my doing so has been occasioned by the pure love of truth and virtue, which the monks altogether refuse either to acknowledge or to practise. Your Eminence may say that I am an old man, and as such might have been contented to finish the remainder of my days in the cloister; but I would observe that my spirit is not affected by age, and that before I terminate my earthly career, I, though old in body not in mind, would fain leave behind me to the youth of the present generation, an example of Christian courage; showing that when an institution becomes corrupt, it is one's duty to abandon it, early or late, as it may be; for as the homely proverb expresses it, 'Better late than never.'" To this the Cardinal replied that he was willing to admit that the good Father had his own reasons for quitting the Dominican habit; that he could not suspect a man like him to be actuated by light-mindedness; and that his friendship towards him would always remain the same: insomuch that the good old man felt himself not a little comforted with these kind assurances. The monks, however, and more particularly those to whom our desertion from the Order was a bitter reproof, were by no means humbled; on the contrary, they were exceedingly irritated at our proceedings, and set themselves to consider how they could most persecute and injure us; in which intent they were greatly encouraged by the assistance they derived from Rome; I mean from the head of the Order, which unfortunately was at that time represented by the Monk Angelo Ancarani, a man of the most dark and gloomy character that ever disgraced humanity. His history might all be told in these few words: he was, during forty-five years, an Inquisitor of the Holy Office.