The death of the unhappy Count Della Torre was soon publicly known; but no man cared to speak of it, not even his nearest relations, nor so much as to mention his name, lest anything should inadvertently escape them that might be construed into a disapprobation of the proceedings of the most holy tribunal; so great is the awe all men live in of that jealous and merciless court. The deep impression that the death of my unhappy friend, the barbarous and inhuman treatment he had met with, and the part I had been obliged to act in so affecting a tragedy, made on my mind, got at once the better of my fears, so that, forgetting in a manner the dangers I had till then so much apprehended, I resolved, without further delay to put in execution the design I had formed, of quitting the Inquisition, and bidding forever adieu to Italy. To execute that design with some safety, I proposed to beg leave to visit the Virgin of Loretto, but thirteen miles distant, and to pass a week there; but in the mean time, to make the best of my way out of the reach of the Inquisition. Having, therefore, after many conflicts with myself, asked leave to visit the neighboring sanctuary, and obtained it, I set out on horseback the very next morning, leaving, as I proposed to keep the horse, his full value with the owner. I took the road to Loretto, but turned out of it a short distance from Recanati, after a most violent struggle with myself, the attempt appearing to me at that juncture, quite desperate and impracticable; and the dreadful doom reserved for me should I miscarry, presented itself to my mind in the strongest light. But the reflection that I had it in my power to avoid being taken alive, and a persuasion that a man in my situation might lawfully avoid it, when every other means failed him, at the expense of his life, revived my staggered resolution; and all my fears ceasing at once, I steered my course, leaving Loretto behind me, to Rocca Contrada, to Fossonbrone, to Calvi in the dukedom of Urbino, and from thence through the Romagna into Bolognese, keeping the by-roads, and at a good distance from the cities through which the high road passed.