And a curious feature in the superstition of the time was, that the officer of the spiritual court, appointed to maintain the interests of all "non-appearing defendants," interfered _for the rats_, and actually obtained leave to "enlarge the rule" for their departure, from four days to six, on the ground that the _cats_ of the city, knowing of the order, would be upon the watch to intercept them. During a considerable time, however, from whatever cause the distemper in Florence arose, it seems that the authorities of the state had presence of mind enough strenuously to maintain, that it was _not_ the "plague." The increasing deaths which occurred in the meaner and closer quarters of the city, were declared to proceed from the _Typhus Carcerum_, or putrid gaol fever. Cleanliness was recommended, and a cheap antiseptic process about all houses, and charitable distribution of wine and food by the richer citizens among the needy. Separation of the infected people from the sound, by removing them to distant hospitals, was in a few instances accomplished by force; and those who contradicted the official statement, or expressed their own alarm too obtrusively, were thrown into prison, here and there, as public agitators. But the truth, even by these expedients, was not long capable of being concealed. Some of the offenders who were sent to gaol for clamouring about the plague died of it in confinement, without waiting for the formality of a trial. The physicians who had attended the sick in the city began themselves to be attacked with illness; and hurried through their visits at the fever hospitals, in spite of their published certificates that nothing serious was the matter. At length Brother Gasparo Marcelli, a monk of the Dominican Convent of Santa Croce, who had been slightly indisposed on the night of the Feast of St Michael, was found dead in his bed on the next morning, and with appearances which admitted of no equivocation. The alarm quickly ran through the monastery; the prior and several monks were seized with sickness. The deceased had been one of the most popular confessors in Florence; and three of his penitents, who had never dreamed that fever might enter palaces, were dead--almost between the next sunrise and sunset--in different directions of the city. Upon which, personal apprehension among the higher classes superseding every consideration of public policy, those who had most actively chastised the terrors of other persons, could now make no secret of their own. The rich began openly to provide for their safety. The seditious, always active in moments of danger, thundered against the government for its deception. The executive power gave up its doubts, whether real or pretended; and it was openly confessed that THE PLAGUE WAS IN FLORENCE.