In the lawless state of society prevailing, such scenes were frequent. It was not criminals only who suffered these punishments. “The State officials and officers of justice were also liable to suffer severe penalties unless they exercised a due discretion in the carrying out of their duties. There is an incident on record which shows this very plainly. One day two of the _sbirri_ out on the Campagna Romana saw a travelling carriage coming from the direction of Frascati. They stopped it, according to custom, and demanded to see the passports of its occupants. Unfortunately for the zealous officers, the travellers chanced to be the Duke of Sermoneta and his family, and he was so affronted at the request that he instantly complained to the governor of Rome, Monsignor Potenziani. Proceedings were taken against the _sbirri_, and although they had evidently not exceeded their just powers, they were bound upon asses and flogged through the streets of the city with these words inscribed on cards round their necks:--’_Per mancanza grave nell’ ufficio di esploratore._’” (For grave dereliction of duty in their office of scout.) It required very little in those barbarous times to bring a man to the gallows. On the first Sunday of the Carnival of 1720, the Abbé Gaetano Volpini da Piperno, a young man of twenty-two, was executed for having written a libel against Pope Clement XI, whom he accused of improper intimacy with Queen Clementina Sobiescki, the wife of James III, the English Pretender. This document was never even printed but it was circulated in manuscript in Vienna, and unfortunately came under the observation of the papal nuncio, Monsignor Spinola, who denounced the author to the pope. Although the scandal was notorious, the wretched abbé was transferred to Rome, where he pined for some time in a loathsome dungeon, and was finally beheaded.