The Elk advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Elk Co., Pa.) 186?-1868, 1867-02-28

plicity with these wretches in crime,
treated them with the utmost contempt.
The bravl revenged themselves by
betrayiug all to Nicola Cenci.
Then in that dark, isolated keep in
he hills, where the human voice found
no response but the wailing echo, deed
OF horror was perpetrated at which
nature stsclf shudders,
Nicola Cenci sought his daughter in
the dead OF night, struck Bernardo
from her threshold. expelled Lucrezia
from her chamber, and then barring her
door, swore that he would conquer her
or klll her at his feet.
What the deadly struggle was, not
even Beatrice in her confession revealed, =,
though she accused her father Of an at
tempt from which our very nature
shrinks
Certain, however, it is that the tremp'
ling woman and the halffaintihg boy
who watched, behcld at length the door
open and Beatrice, pale, her woudrous
golden hair streaming over her, come
forth alone.
On her bed lay Nicola Cenci With a
dagger in his heart-dead.
Tradition and poetry have firmly be.
lieved in the outrage offered by Nicola
10 his daughter as the justification of
her deed but nothing has confirmed
her confession, and this horrible crime
was probably invented by the defenders
OF Beatrice when q petition for pardon
was presented to Clement VIII.
Beatrice, Lucrezia and Bernardo were
all arrested and taken to Rome. They
had attempted 40 fight, and offered no
resis ance.
Now that Nicola was dead his vices
were ali forgotten in the great crime OF
parricide, which Beatrice lad commit.
ed
She bore herself with calmness and
dignity, ltet great beatty and serenity
astonishing the judges. She submitted
without nurmur Of pain to the appi-
cation of the torture, weeping only
when the sufierings aud condemnation
of her young brother were made known
to her.
Unmoved she heard her sen,enre Of
death.
"You can take away but my life, anu
what has life been to me ?"
Her youth, her beauty, her high
birth, however, at last Infused some in.
terest among the Roman nobility. A
mitigation Of the sentences was ask ed
for frcm Clement VIII, but ne refused
it, and Beatrice was condemned to the
scatlold.
Guido REM, then painting in the
Vatican, was, fortunately for posterity,
present at her trial, and struck with her
extraordinary beauty, asked permission
of the Pope to paint her portrait
He was admitted to The cell, and pro
duccd that portrait whose wondrous eyes
look down on us, now with depths of
courage, sadness and resignation, that
tell her history at Que glance. The
strans1 heavy drapery Guido has wound
about the head was portion Of the
white pcnetential garment worn by bar.
rieides at the seaffold. He has thrown
it from the shoulders over the head evi,
IDENTIFY to display the hair like burnish,
ed gold, for which beatrice vas reuoun
ed. The picture is in the Barbarini
Palace at Rome, but Is popular every
where, from the frequent copies made
of it in all forms
On the 18th of September, 1899
Beatrice Cenci was led to the scaifold-i
mere block OF wood where her head wa.
to be literally chopped off by the Man
naia, or the butchers axe.
She was not only serene, but cheerful
The world had nothing in it Tor her tc
mourn No love had ever nude hel
heart beat even the natural affection,
had been denied her. She had lived
midst strife, ,bloodshed, vice and violence
and living among it with a pure sensi,
tive nature capable Of feeling all the
horrors OF such life.
No wonder that she smiled a smile o.
scOrn on earth, and looked up with
cleaning eyes 10 the world above her.
She trusted in God (; but even had she
not possessed that faith, the utter repos(
of the grave was preferable to the fate
she had endured while living.
They bound her hands, and the exc
cutioner's axe glittered beside her
Then turning to the two sbirri VIII,
we're tying her hands, she exclaimed
"You bind my body for destruction
but you give to my soul Immortality
These were the last words of the
beautiful heroic and unhappy Beatric,
Ueuci. -l ... ..' ....
In Albany, Sunday morning, fir,