The count’s first step was to recall from Civita-Vecchia the fourth galley under the command of Giacobbe Conte, on pretence of arming it as a privateer, and sending it to cruise against the Barbary commerce in the east. He had two other ships ready to sail in neighbouring ports. With these vessels he was able without exciting suspicion, to bring into the city the troops concealed in his castles. He placed some of them on board his triremes; others were concealed in his own house and those of his fellow-conspirators. Verrina was the soul of every movement. He knew all the arts of ingratiating himself with the plebeians, and winning their sympathies to the cause of his master. He began to allude in guarded phrases to the necessity of a revolution in the interest of popular government; and at the same time contrived to have many vassals of the count enrolled in the permanent militia of the Republic. Many artisans and mechanics to whom he gave presents, promised him the service of their arms to rescue by force a castle of the count from some Florentine merchants, who, he said, had seized it for debts. He was a man capable of inventing traps and lures for all sorts of birds, and he enrolled no one, whom he believed fitted for the work of the conspiracy, until he had sounded the note best adapted to charm his recruit. Calcagno, though he had dissuaded the count from drawing the sword, was so overcome by his love for his young master, that he was the most ardent worker in the conspiracy. He was assigned the office of providing arms and provisions for the troops gradually being collected and introduced into the city. Sacco was appointed to maintain order and discipline among these soldiers. Ottobuono, brother of Gianluigi, was sent to the court of France to secure the sympathy of the French monarch for the cause of the approaching revolution. The Republic was at this moment without a Doge, Giovanni Battista di Fornari having retired from the magistracy. The galleys were idle and without crews, because the season was unpropitious for navigation. There were few of the permanent militia in the city, and these for the most part were devoted to Gianluigi. Giulio Cybo and other marquises of Valdimagra, had a considerable force ready to break into the city at the first opportune moment. The plebeians were ripe for revolution; the Dorias and nobility without the least suspicion. All things seemed propitious. Such was the condition of Genoa on the eve of the conspiracy. “Strange,” says Cardinal de Retz, “ten thousand persons in Italy were awaiting the outbreak of the insurrection, and there was not one to betray the plot.”[41]