The bookseller began by excusing himself for the liberty he had taken.
He explained that the Signorina Fulvia Vivaldi, in whose behalf he came,was in urgent need of aid, and had begged him to wait on the Duke assoon as the court had risen from the play.
"She is in Pianura, then?" Odo exclaimed.
"Since yesterday, your Highness. Three days since she was ordered by thepolice to leave Milan within twenty-four hours, and she came at once toPianura, knowing that my wife and I would gladly receive her. But todaywe learned that the Holy Office was advised of her presence here, and ofthe reason of her banishment from Lombardy; and this fresh danger hasforced her to implore your Highness's protection."Andreoni went on to explain that the publication of her father's bookwas the immediate cause of Fulvia's persecution. The Origin ofCivilisation, which had been printed some months previously inAmsterdam, had stirred Italy more profoundly than any book sinceBeccaria's great work on Crime and Punishment. The author's historicalinvestigations were but a pretext for the development of his politicaltheories, which were set forth with singular daring and audacity, andsupported by all the arguments that his long study of the pastcommanded. The temperate and judicial tone which he had succeeded inpreserving enhanced the effect of his arraignment of Church and state,and while his immense erudition commended his work to the learned, itsdirectness of style gave it an immediate popularity with the generalreader. It was an age when every book or pamphlet bearing on the greatquestion of personal liberty was eagerly devoured by an insatiablepublic; and a few weeks after Vivaldi's volume had been smuggled intoItaly it was the talk of every club and coffee-house from Calabria toPiedmont. The inevitable result soon followed. The Holy Office got windof the business, and the book was at once put on the Index. In Naplesand Bologna it was publicly burned, and in Modena a professor of theUniversity who was found to have a copy in his possession was fined andremoved from his chair.
In Milan, where the strong liberal faction among the nobility, and thecomparative leniency of the Austrian rule, permitted a more unrestraineddiscussion of political questions, the Origin of Civilisation wasreceived with open enthusiasm, and the story of the difficulties thatFulvia had encountered in its publication made her the heroine of themoment. She had never concealed her devotion to her father's doctrines,and in the first glow of filial pride she may have yielded too openly tothe desire to propagate them. Certain it is that she began to be lookedon as having shared in the writing of the book, or as being at least anactive exponent of its principles. Even in Lombardy it was not well tobe too openly associated with the authorship of a condemned book; andFulvia was suddenly advised by the police that her presence in Milan wasno longer acceptable to the government.
The news excited great indignation among her friends, and CountCastiglione and several other gentlemen of rank hastened to intervene inher behalf; but the governor declared himself unwilling to take issuewith the Holy Office on a doctrinal point, and privately added that itwould be well for the Signorina Vivaldi to withdraw from Lombardy beforethe clergy brought any direct charge against her. To ignore this hintwould have been to risk not only her own safety but that of thegentlemen who had befriended her; and Fulvia at once set out forPianura, the only place in Italy where she could count on friendship andprotection.
Andreoni and his wife would gladly have given her a home; but onlearning that the Holy Office was on her track, she had refused tocompromise them by remaining under their roof, and had insisted thatAndreoni should wait on the Duke and obtain a safe-conduct for her thatvery night.
Odo listened to this story with an agitation compounded of strangelycontradicto............