This man, whose real name was Giuseppe Balsamo, was born in Palermo on the eighth of June 1743. His youth was wild and disreputable. He tried being a monk, but soon tired of it, and threw his frock to the nettles, as the French say, in Caltagirone, in Sicily; after that he lived by theft, by coining false money, and by every sort of imposture. In Rome he married a girl of singular beauty, Lorenza Feliciani, who became his tool in all his intrigues. The French freemasons made use of the singularly intelligent couple to propagate the doctrines of the revolution. Pretending to change hemp into silk, and every metal into gold, and selling marvellous waters for restoring the aged to youth and beauty, the two got into many excellent houses, changing their names and their disguises whenever they were compromised. Balsamo arrived in Venice in 1787 or 1788, under the name of Count Cagliostro, and began an active revolutionary campaign, to the great annoyance [Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Ult. 31._] of the Inquisitors, who fancied they had suppressed the whole movement when Cristofoli had discovered the famous Lodge. He was less fortunate this time. He tracked the Count everywhere, but could get no substantial evidence against him, till he suddenly came upon positive proof that the impostor had stolen a thousand sequins from a rich merchant of the Giudecca. And then, at the very moment when the great policeman was sure of his game, the man disappeared as into thin air and was next heard of beyond the Austrian frontier. The chief of the Sbirri had better luck when he raided the Café Ancilotto, which was a favourite place of meeting for the revolutionaries. They [Sidenote: _Tassini, under ‘Ancilotto.’_] tried to open a reading-room there, furnished with all the latest revolutionary literature, but Cristofoli got wind of the plan, called on the man who kept the café, and informed him that the first person who entered the ‘reading-room’ would be invited to pay a visit to the Inquisitors of State. After that, no one showed any inclination to read the French papers. In connection with Cristofoli, we also come upon the curious fact that he arrested, at the Café [Sidenote: _Tassini, under ‘Caffetero.’_] of the Ponte dell’ Angelo, a number of Barnabotti, who were preaching suspicious doctrines. As usual, the poor nobles were the class most easily bribed and most ready to betray their country. Cristofoli was occasionally entrusted with missions more diplomatic than the arrest of revolutionaries. He was sometimes sent to present his respects to great nobles who did not guess that they had attracted the eyes of the police. It was the business of the Inquisitors to watch over the artistic treasures of the capital. During the last year of the Republic a number of nobles sold precious [Illustration: RIO DELLA GUERRA]