him; and yet, after this, the shabby dog complained to the Government,—­after being quite satisfied, as he said. This roused me, and I gave them a remonstrance which had some effect.  The captain has been reprimanded, the servant released, and the business at present rests there.”

* * * * *

Among the victims of the “black sentence and proscription” by which the rulers of Italy were now, as appears from the above letters, avenging their late alarm upon all who had even in the remotest degree contributed to it, the two Gambas were, of course, as suspected Chiefs of the Carbonari of Romagna, included.  About the middle of July, Madame Guiccioli, in a state of despair, wrote to inform Lord Byron that her father, in whose palazzo she was at that time residing, had just been ordered to quit Ravenna within twenty-four hours, and that it was the intention of her brother to depart the following morning.  The young Count, however, was not permitted to remain even so long, being arrested that very night, and conveyed by soldiers to the frontier; and the Contessa herself, in but a few days after, found that she also must join the crowd of exiles.  The prospect of being again separated from her noble friend seems to have rendered banishment little less fearful, in her eyes, than death.  “This alone,” she says in a letter to him, “was wanting to fill up the measure of my despair.  Help me, my dear Byron, for I am in a situation most terrible; and without you, I can resolve upon nothing. * * has just been with me, having been sent by * * to tell me that I must depart from Ravenna before next Tuesday, as my husband has had recourse to Rome, for the purpose of either forcing me to return to him, or else putting me in a convent; and the answer from thence is expected in a few days.  I must not speak of this to any one,—­I roust escape by night; for, if my project should be discovered, it will be impeded, and my passport (which the goodness of Heaven has permitted me, I know not how, to obtain) will be taken from me.  Byron!  I am in despair!—­If I must leave you here without knowing when I shall see you again, if it is your will that I should suffer so cruelly, I am resolved to remain.  They may put me in a convent; I shall die,—­but—­but then you cannot aid me, and I cannot reproach you.  I know not what they tell me, for my agitation overwhelms me;—­and why?  Not because I fear my present danger, but solely, I call Heaven to witness, solely because I must leave you.”

Towards the latter end of July, the writer of this tender and truly feminine letter found herself forced to leave Ravenna,—­the home of her youth, as it was, now, of her heart,—­uncertain whither to go, or where she should again meet Lord Byron.  After lingering for a short time at Bologna, under a faint expectation that the Court of Rome might yet, through some friendly mediation [41], be induced to rescind its order against her relatives, she at length gave up all hope, and joined her father and brother at Florence.