The Sun.
London, England, 1851-08-01 00:00:00

THE DEVIL AT PISA.

FLORENCE, JULY 16.—One of those ridiculous prat
tical jokes which so often end fatally to the actor has
just Occurred at Pisa, and as it ecaesions a great sen,,a-
tion here, in consequence of the stain it attaches to the
friars in one of the convents of that city, I
take leave to give you the particulars, partly
as I have heard them recounted by others, and partly-
as I find them in the local journals. At Pisa,
there lived in latter years a "fast" young many,
whose morals were something like the celebrated lean-
ing tower, a little inclined the wrong way, and who,
among other escapades, had caused a great scandal in a.
respectable family, and refused to repair it by marriage,
according to the prayers of the victim and the com-
mands of the Church. The gentleman was, in fact, a
regular mauvais sujet, a fit subject for a French novel,
and he went on from day to day, strutting along the
banks of the Arno, and perverting all the foolish
maids of that not over-religious vicinity, neither'
attending to the advice of his friends or the remon-
gy, till sickness overtook him in the
strances of the cler
midst of his sins, and death struck him with its most.
mortal arrow. Scapegrace as ho was, he declined the
consolations of religion in his last days, and refused to
confess or repent, like another Don Giovanni. In vain,
an excellent and pious priest spoke of his immortal
soul and the penalties prepared in the other world for
those who take leave of this in final impenitence—
in vain did the friars declare that the Devil wonld
claim him es his own the moment the last sigh war
drawn—and in vain did one of the reverend gentlemen
recount how in a vision be saw his Infernal Majesty
maltreat a hardened sinner on a similar occasion. Don.
Giovanni died game, as the greatest criminals often do,
but before he gave up the ghost be made one of his
friends, a Corsican resident at Pisa, promise that he.
would watch over the body in the Chapelle Mortuaire,
and never leave it until it was consigned to its last.
home- The Corsican kept his word, and alone and in
the dead of the night he sat by the side
in of his departed
friend
the convent chapel, where corpses are exposed
for twenty-four hours before burial, either in conse-
crated or a crated ground. But just as the clock
struck twelvedeep groan, accompanied by
the rattling
of chains, was heard,
a figure enter, and the watcher to his horror saw
dressedu according to the most approved
receipt for fitting
a long tail, a chaiii3 a
girtdevil, with tremendous horns,
round his body, and draped
in red and black, ashi
Tile Corsican had a bold his Satanic Majesty should be.
Devil
and ha asked the Devil
laardeplhied by
what he wanted. Theehauins,
groan, the rattling of an awful
his claws to seize his prey. ThetCeoro9tspreading of
daunted, declared that ho would not allowsan' still un-
to be touched, and he warned the Devil that
the body
hebufly
not leave the place he would send himir did
back
to his infernal regions faster than he came from
them. the Devil replied
them. To this speech
1,,, ...y a scornful
Zamiel in Der Freisehutz
laugh, such as
another rattle of the chains advanced to the coffua.sido .
faithful friend produced a loaded pistol,
on which the .
shot the Devil through
and taking sure ainf,the heart, 1
feet, dead, as they
and dropped him at his
or, at Birmingham, as a dour nail.
sterdam, as a herring the police,
the police, and a num-
ber report of the pistol alarmed.
',.. having anneared h
guardians of the night .., ,t ey
ber of those
c-rpse lying in ire prober
saw to their astonishment the .., .
I by
its side, and
place,theCorsican sitting
tranquil Yand back, with a
a bleeding mass covered with red
'l-known tail. An
tremendous pair of horns, and the we,
Awhen- the Devil
explanation was soon given, an,.,
was stripped of his finery he turned out to be the bell-
man of the convent, employed no dcnbt by tho friars
whose religious assistance was refused, for the purpose
of giving a striking proof of the danger of dying with-
out the Consolations of the Church, and of the fate to