“Signore, it should not be thus—­God never intended it should be so!”

“While every principle would seem to say that each must stand or fall by his own good or evil deeds, that men are to be honored as they merit, every device of human institutions is exerted to achieve the opposite.  This is exalted, because his ancestry is noble; that condemned for no better reason than that he is born vile.  Melchior!  Melchior! our reason is unhinged by subtleties, and our boasted philosophy and right are no more than unblushing mockeries, at which the very devils laugh!”

“And yet the commandments of God tell us, Gaetano, that the sins of the father shall be visited on the descendants from generation to generation.  You of Rome pay not this close attention, perhaps, to sacred writ, but I have heard it said that we have not in Berne a law for which good warranty cannot be found in the holy volume itself.”

“Ay, there are sophists to prove all that they wish.  The crimes and follies of the ancestor leave their physical, or even their moral taint, on the child, beyond a question, good Melchior;—­but is not this sufficient?  Are we blasphemously, even impiously, to pretend that God has not sufficiently provided for the punishment of the breaches of his wise ordinances, that we must come forward to second them by arbitrary and heartless rules of our own?  What crime is imputable to the family of this youth beyond that of poverty, which probably drove the first of his race to the execution of their revolting office.  There is little in the mien or morals of Sigismund to denote the visitations of Heaven’s wise decrees, but there is everything in his present situation to proclaim the injustice of man.”

“And dost thou, Gaetano Grimaldi, the ally of so many ancient and illustrious houses—­thou, Gaetano Grimaldi, the honored of Genoa—­dost thou counsel me to give my only child, the heiress of my lands and name, to the son of the public executioner, nay, to the very heritor of his disgusting duties!”

“There thou hast me on the hip, Melchior; the question is put strongly, and needs reflection for an answer.  Oh! why is this Balthazar so rich in offspring, and I so poor?  But we will not press the matter; it is an affair of many sides, and should be judged by us as men, as well as nobles.  Daughter, thou hast just learned, by the words of thy father, that I am against thee, by position and heritage, for, while I condemn the principle of this wrong, I cannot overlook its effects, and never before did a case of as tangled difficulty, one in which right was so palpably opposed by opinion, present itself for my judgment.  Leave us, that we may command ourselves; the required decision exacts much care, and greater mastery of ourselves than I can exercise, with that sweet pale face of thine appealing so eloquently to my heart in behalf of the noble boy.”

Adelheid arose, and first offering her marble-like brow to the salutations of both her parents, for the ancient friendship and strong sympathies of the Genoese, gave him a claim to this appellation in her affections at least, she silently withdrew.