FIESCO, OR THE GENOESE CONSPIRACY.

A TRAGEDY.


By Frederich Schiller



AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

The chief sources from which I have drawn the history of this conspiracy
are Cardinal de Retz's Conjuration du Comte Jean Louis de Fiesque, the
Histoire des Genes, and the third volume of Robertson's History of
Charles the Fifth.

The liberties which I have taken with the historical facts will be
excused, if I have succeeded in my attempt; and, if not, it is better
that my failure should appear in the effusions of fancy, than in the
delineation of truth. Some deviation from the real catastrophe of the
conspiracy (according to which the count actually perished [A] when his
schemes were nearly ripe for execution) was rendered necessary by the
nature of the drama, which does not allow the interposition either of
chance or of a particular Providence. It would be matter of surprise
to me that this subject has never been adopted by any tragic writer,
did not the circumstances of its conclusion, so unfit for dramatic
representation, afford a sufficient reason for such neglect. Beings of
a superior nature may discriminate the finest links of that chain which
connects an individual action with the system of the universe, and may,
perhaps, behold them extended to the utmost limits of time, past and