We went by way of the Fodesta Gate, and passed the old Castle of Sant' Antonio, then in ruins--for Gambara was demolishing it and employing the material to construct a barrack for the Pontifical troops that garrisoned Piacenza. And presently we came upon the works of this new building, and stepped out into mid-street to avoid the scaffoldings, and so pursued our way into the city's main square--the Piazza del Commune, overshadowed by the red-and-white bulk of the Communal Palace. This was a noble building, rather in the Saracenic manner, borrowing a very warlike air from the pointed battlements that crowned it. Near the Duomo we came upon a great concourse of people who were staring up at the iron cage attached to the square tower of the belfry near its summit. In this cage there was what appeared at first to be a heap of rags, but which presently resolved itself into a human shape, crouching in that narrow, cruel space, exposed there to the pitiless beating of the sun, and suffering Heaven alone can say what agonies. The murmuring crowd looked up in mingled fear and sympathy. He had been there since last night, a peasant girl informed us, and he had been confined there by order of my Lord the Cardinal-legate for the odious sin of sacrilege. “What!” I cried out, in such a tone of astonished indignation that Monna Giuliana seized my arm and pressed it to enjoin prudence. It was not until she had made her purchases in a shop under the Duomo and we were returning home that I touched upon the matter. She chid me for the lack of caution that might have led me into some unpardonable indiscretions but for her warning. “But the very thought of such a man as my Lord Gambara torturing a poor wretch for sacrilege!” I cried. “It is grotesque; it is ludicrous; it is infamous!” “Not so loud,” she laughed. “You are being stared at.” And then she delivered herself of an amazing piece of casuistry. “If a man being a sinner himself, shall on that account refrain from punishing sin in others, then is he twice a sinner.” “It was my Lord Gambara taught you that,” said I, and involuntarily I sneered. She considered me with a very searching look. “Now, what precisely do you mean, Agostino?” “Why, that it is by just such sophistries that the Cardinal-legate seeks to cloak the disorders of his life. 'Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor?' is his philosophy. If he would encage the most sacrilegious fellow in Piacenza, let him encage himself.” “You do not love him?” said she. “O--as to that--as a man he is well enough. But as an ecclesiastic...O, but there!” I broke off shortly, and laughed. “The devil take Messer Gambara!” She smiled. “It is greatly to be feared that he will.”