“But to return to our lamentable story. When the murder was known next day and the bodies of the unfortunate women were recognised, Giustino Canaccj, the husband of Caterina, and Bartolomeo and Francesco his sons were seized and imprisoned together with another son, whose name I forget, with his wife and an unmarried daughter of the said Giustino and one married to Luigi Tedaldi as well as Luigi himself. But against those scoundrels who committed the murder, either because the court had no knowledge of them, or because they had taken refuge in flight, or for some other occult reason, no steps were taken, nor against their principal; so true is the common saying that justice acts only against the poor, and that laws are like cobwebs, which catch flies and such small creatures while large ones tear and break them. Of the above-named prisoners, Giustino, his daughters, his step-son and the other son with his wife were liberated after a time as innocent; but Bartolomeo and Francesco were kept in prison and subjected to torture. Francesco, either really innocent and not present at the murder, or more prudent, or perchance more fortunate, confessed nothing and after many months was set free; but Bartolomeo, they say, whether truly or not will never be known, confessed to have aided in this terrible affair and on the ... of 1639 was beheaded in the doorway of the Bargello. Small applause did justice get for this execution, good citizens being scandalized that the less guilty one who had been, as we say, dragged into the business by the hair of his head and was known to have been a poor wretch of small wit, and thought to have been tortured into saying more than he knew, should suffer capital punishment; while the real delinquent, the principal and head of it all, received no punishment save perchance from her own conscience and sense of shame. It is true, and it was said at the time, that Madame Christine of Lorraine, grandmother to the Grand Duke Ferdinando II, a princess of great learning, good and pious, and very zealous in the cause of justice, horrified by so atrocious a deed wished to have the Duchess arrested; but as soon as the murder had been committed she fled to her villa of S. Cerbone, and warned of her danger left for Rome; so justice contented itself with exiling her, but the sentence was soon commuted. “Such was the end of the barbarity and cruelty of Duchess Veronica which I have described at length, not from any love of evil-speaking, but from the desire to enlighten posterity. The more so that it was said that justice, if it merits the name, in order to save the great bore heavy on the weak and, as we say, to throw dust in the eyes of the public, drew up two statements, one true which remained hid, one false which was published to the world. Let those who read these my recollections remember that our proverbs are always apt, and that whoso forgathers with great people is the last at table and the first at the gallows.”