Two of the women followed him as far as the Saragossa Gate, through which he passed out of the town. There Pepe stopped them by threatening them seriously with his cane and throwing them some small coins. Fabrizio climbed the pretty hill of San Michele in Bosco, walked partly round the town, outside the walls, turned into a foot-path, which, five hundred paces farther on, ran into the road from Florence, returned to Bologna, and gravely presented a passport containing a very accurate description of his person to the police commissary. This passport described him as Giuseppe Bossi, student of theology. Fabrizio noticed a little splash of red ink that seemed to have been dropped by accident on the lower right-hand corner of the paper. Two hours later he had a spy upon his heels, on account of the title “your Excellency” applied to him by his companion in the presence of the beggars at San Petronio, although his passport detailed none of those honours which entitle a man to be addressed as “Excellency” by his servants. Fabrizio perceived the spy, and snapped his fingers at him. He gave not a thought, now, either to passports or police officers, and was as amused as a child with everything about him. When Pepe, who had been ordered to stay with him, saw how well pleased he was with Ludovico, he thought his own best course was to carry the good news to the duchess himself. Fabrizio wrote two long letters to his dear ones. Then he bethought him of writing a third to the venerable Archbishop Landriani. This letter produced a most extraordinary effect. It contained the exact history of his fight with Giletti. The good archbishop, quite overcome by his emotion, did not fail to go and read the letter to the prince, whose curiosity to know how the young monsignore would set about excusing so terrible a murder made him willing to listen. Thanks to the Marchesa Raversi’s many friends, the prince, like the whole city of Parma, believed Fabrizio had obtained the assistance of some twenty or thirty peasants to kill an inferior actor who had ventured to dispute his possession of little Marietta. At despotic courts truth lies at the mercy of the first clever schemer, just as in Paris it is ruled by fashion. “But, devil take it,” said the prince to the archbishop, “one has those things done by a third person. It is not customary to do them oneself. And then actors like Giletti are not killed; they are bought.” Fabrizio had not the smallest suspicion of what was going on at Parma. As a matter of fact, the death of a player who only earned thirty-two francs a month in his lifetime was going near to overthrow the _ultra_ ministry, with Count Mosca at its head.