To this oration the advocate of the Duchess of Orleans replied at great length. Valentina's answer to the accusation we have quoted, was concise and simple. "The late duke, Louis of Orleans, was a prince of too great piety and virtue to tamper with sorceries and witchcraft." The legal proceedings against Jean-sans-peur seemed likely to last for an interminable period. Even should they be decided in favor of the family of Orleans, the feeble sovereign dared not carry the sentence of the law into execution against so powerful an offender as the Duke of Burgundy. Valentina knew this; she knew also that she could not find elsewhere one who could enforce her claims for justice--justice on the murderer of her husband--the slayer of the father of her defenseless children. Milan, the home of her girlhood, was a slaughter-house, reeking with the blood of her kindred. Five years previously her father, Giovanni-Galeazzo Visconti, had died of the plague which then desolated Italy. To avoid this terrible disorder he shut himself up in the town of Marignano, and amused himself during his seclusion by the study of judicial astrology, in which science he was an adept. A comet appeared in the sky. The haughty Visconti doubted not that this phenomenon was an announcement to him of his approaching death. "I thank God," he cried, "that this intimation of my dissolution will be evident to all men: my glorious life will be not ingloriously terminated." The event justified the omen. By his second marriage with Katharina Visconti, daughter of his uncle Bernabos, Giovanni Galeazzo left two sons, still very young, Giovanni-Maria and Philippo-Maria, among whom his dominions were divided, their mother acting as guardian and regent. All the ferocious characteristics of the Visconti seemed to be centred in the stepmother of Valentina. The Duchess of Milan delighted in executions; she beheaded, on the slightest suspicions, the highest nobles of Lombardy. At length she provoked reprisals, and died the victim of poison. Giovanni-Maria, nurtured in blood, was the worthy son of such a mother. His thirst for blood was unquenchable; his favorite pursuit was to witness the torments of criminals delivered over to bloodhounds, trained for the purpose, and fed only on human flesh. His huntsman and favorite, Squarcia Giramo, on one occasion, for the amusement of his master, threw to them a young boy only twelve years of age. The innocent child clung to the knees of the duke, and entreated that he might be preserved from so terrible a fate. The bloodhounds hung back. Squarcia Giramo seizing the child, with his hunting-knife cut his throat, and then flung him to the dogs. More merciful than these human monsters, they refused to touch the innocent victim.