318 [January 28, 1860.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [ Conducted by

Duke of Bracciano—one of Orsini's titles, by
which he is often called. To the last her mother
protested, as one of the chroniclers writes, that,
"for her part, she would not have preferred a
future uncertain greatness for her daughter to
princely grandeur present in the person of the
prince, who was brother-in-law of another car-
dinal and prince, Ferdinando dei Medici."

Meanwhile, Vittoria was received into the
Peretti family in a manner, writes the historian,
which ought to have contented and made the
happiness of any woman. The old Cardinal di
Montalto showed her every mark of affec-
tion. Though by no means rich, he did his
utmost to satisfy all her tastes and caprices.
The old monk, in the words of the chronicler,
"even anticipated her womanish desires for or-
naments, servants, pomp, dresses, jewels, and a
coach," that then rare and much-coveted apex
of fashionable luxury and ostentation. Her
husband, we are assured, loved her "almost
madly, and quite beyond what husbands are
wont to feel for their wives." Donna Cammilla,
Francesco Peretti's mother, and the cardinal's
favourite sister, treated her with the greatest
affection, and the old cardinal himself " seemed
to study nothing else than to spy out her
wishes, and satisfy them even before they were
expressed, although they were often of a very
costly nature."

Her family, too, began almost immediately to
reap important advantages from the new con-
nexion. Of her four brothers, two had favoured
the wishes of his most noble and most reverend
eminence the Cardinal Farnese; and the other two
were of their mother's faction, warm supporters
of Prince Orsini's wooing. But the winning can-
didate does not appear to have allowed any un-
kind feeling to have diminished the cordiality of
his affection for his new brothers-in-law.

First, her eldest brother, Ottavio, the "young
man of saintly morals," who had striven to
make his sister the mistress of the sexagenarian
priest, had to be provided for. He, as might
perhaps have been guessed, had embraced the ec-
clesiastical career; and the pious and exemplary
cardinal, his new uncle-in-law, lost no time in
writing to the Duke of Urbino, who was their
common sovereign (both Gubbio and Fermo, the
Cardinal di Montalto's birthplace, being in the
territory of the Dukes of Urbino), to beg him
to propose Ottavio Accoramboni to the Pope
for a bishopric. He was accordingly made
Bishop of Fossombroni almost immediately. Of
course it was easier to make a churchman's fortune
than to find advancement for a layman; almost all
careers of the latter category requiring, more or
less, some measure of capacity for being useful
on the part of those who seek promotion in
them. However, when the lovely Vittoria be-
gan to sigh about poor dear Giulio, her second
brother, and to fret over his want of a position,
the good uncle-in-law again put his shoulder to
the wheel. He could not make Giulio a bishop,
but he succeeded in inducing his eminence
Cardinal Sforza to take him as his " gentleman
of the chamber." It would seem that brother

Giulio must have been of the Orsini faction in
the ' matter of the wooing. But the benefits
showered on the family by the unvindictive
Perettis fell impartially on the supporters of
either rival. The third brother, Flaminio, was
a Farnese-ite. And that worthy old churchman,
despite the natural disgust which he must have
felt at the insulting rejection of his flattering
offers to the Accoramboni family, seems to have
charged himself with the fortunes of his zealous
and faithful, though unsuccessful, supporter.
The fourth brother still remained to be provided
for; and Vittoria did not disguise from herself
that the peculiar circumstances of his case in
some degree increased the difficulty of placing
him in an independent and honourable position.
The truth was, that Marcello Accoramboni had
been "a little wild." He had, indeed, given
himself to the culture of that noxious plant the
avena selvatica, or wild oat, on such an exten-
sive scale, as to have attracted the notice of the
police authorities, who had strongly recom-
mended him to sow none of his favourite plant
within the walls of Rome, and, indeed, as the
surest mode of securing this result, had re-
quested him not to favour that city with his
presence until specially invited. In short,
Marcello Accoramboni was a bandit; and
Vittoria did not venture to speak to the
Cardinal di Montalto about him. The inex-
haustible kindness, however, of her uncle-in-
law extended itself even to this black sheep
of the Accoramboni flock. Guessing all that his
favourite nephew's beautiful bride would have
asked if she had dared, the indulgent old car-
dinal protected the scapegrace from the police,
connived at his visits to Rome, and suffered
him, when there, to find an inviolable asylum in
his own sacred palace! "And it may fairly
be said," remarks the cardinal's biographer,
"that by saving this man's life, he was nur-
turing a snake in his bosom." From which
strong language it would seem that Marcello
Accoramboni's differences with the law had
been of a serious nature. And further, from
the protection against the law accorded to such
an offender by one in the position of the highly
respected Cardinal di Montalto, who was desig-
nated by public opinion for the next successor
to the chair of St. Peter, and who was sedu-
lously nursing a reputation for goodness and
respectability of all sorts, we may draw some
noteworthy conclusions as to the general respect
in which the law was then held in Rome, and
the feeling of the society generally with regard
to those who lived under its ban.

This fourth brother, Marcello the bandit, it
must be observed, had been a violent supporter
of Orsini's pretensions to his sister's hand.

And now it would seem, that if ever a young
wife had reason to be contented with her lot,
Vittoria should have been so. All Rome thought
so, and expressed their opinions volubly enough,
especially all those Roman dames and damsels
who " owed it to themselves to declare that
they, for their parts, had never seen anything so
very wonderful about the girl, and had always