painted that beautiful picture from her blanched face, as it appeared
after this confinement. And how rejoiced she must have been to die at
last, having already been in a sepulchre so long!

Adjacent to Beatrice's prison, but not communicating with it, was that of
her step-mother; and next to the latter was one that interested me almost
as much as Beatrice's,--that of Benvenuto Cellini, who was confined here,
I believe, for an assassination. All these prison vaults are more
horrible than can be imagined without seeing them; but there are worse
places here, for the guide lifted a trap-door in one of the passages, and
held his torch down into an inscrutable pit beneath our feet. It was an
oubliette, a dungeon where the prisoner might be buried alive, and never
come forth again, alive or dead. Groping about among these sad
precincts, we saw various other things that looked very dismal; but at
last emerged into the sunshine, and ascended from one platform and
battlement to another, till we found ourselves right at the feet of the
Archangel Michael. He has stood there in bronze for I know not how many
hundred years, in the act of sheathing a (now) rusty sword, such being
the attitude in which he appeared to one of the popes in a vision, in
token that a pestilence which was then desolating Rome was to be stayed.

There is a fine view from the lofty station over Rome and the whole
adjacent country, and the abbe pointed out the site of Ardea, of
Corioli, of Veii, and other places renowned in story. We were ushered,
too, into the French commandant's quarters in the castle. There is
a large hall, ornamented with frescos, and accessible from this a
drawing-room, comfortably fitted up, and where we saw modern furniture,
and a chess-board, and a fire burning clear, and other symptoms that the
place had perhaps just been vacated by civilized and kindly people. But
in one corner of the ceiling the abbe pointed out a ring, by which, in