Resembling one another in the nobility of their lineage, and the enormity of their wealth, and the reputation that had come to them, these two heroines are alike admirable for their different styles of beauty. Whilst Julia is a gentle blonde, Matilda is a Cleopatra, with dark rolling eyes, and breasts made to heave with voluptuous desire. Each of these ladies is in love with the Count at the beginning of the story, which opens with particulars of his seizure at an inn near Munich, as he is journeying southwards to the damsel of his preference. Captured at this tavern, whilst he breathes heavily and lies helpless under a stupor of Zastrozzi's contrivance, the Count Verezzi is thrust into a chariot, and conveyed to his place of imprisonment with all the celerity attainable on rough roads, in days long prior to the invention of the steam-locomotive. Drawn by relays of horses, that are put to their fullest speed by Bernardo (the postillion) the chariot moves rapidly throughout the day, till on the approach of nightfall it quits the post-road, and makes slower progress through the rugged underwood of a forest, to the jaws of a cavern yawning in a darksome dell. In this cavern the Count--fastened by a chain to the rock of the cavern's inmost recess, and fed upon bread and water--is confined for several days and nights, till the rock of his dismal dungeon is broken up during a thunderstorm by a scintillating flash of lightning! On the morrow of this remarkable storm, the youthful Count is discovered in a plight, which causes his persecutors to liberate him from his manacles, and to call in a physician, who, after carrying the youth out of brain-fever (quite as skilfully as the Hermit, _alias_ Dr. Lind, in _Laon and Cythna_ carries Laon out of brain-fever under similar circumstances), recommends that he should be conveyed, without loss of a single moment, to a scene of tranquillity. In compliance with this advice, the captive is lifted again into the chariot, and conveyed by Zastrozzi and his subordinate villains (Ugo and Bernardo) to a cottage, standing in the middle of a wide and desolate heath, to which they come after four hours' rapid posting. In that cottage, tended by an old woman (one of Zastrozzi's creatures), and watched by Ugo and Bernardo, the Count remains till, on his convalescence, he knocks Bernardo down-stairs (in the temporary absence of Zastrozzi, Ugo, and the old woman), and clearing out of the humble tenement, reaches the vicinity of Passau, where he is sheltered and hospitably entertained by the peasant Claudine,--an amiable old woman, who gets her living by raising flowers for the Passau market.