survive long who conceives himself to have a right over her; it is a
kind of sacrilege. And only death, the willingness to pay for such
happiness by death, can at all make a man worthy of being her lover; he
must be willing to love and suffer and die. This is the meaning of her
device--"Amour Dure--Dure Amour." The love of Medea da Carpi cannot
fade, but the lover can die; it is a constant and a cruel love.

_Nov. 11th.--_

I was right, quite right in my idea. I have found--Oh, joy! I treated
the Vice-Prefect's son to a dinner of five courses at the Trattoria La
Stella d'Italia out of sheer jubilation--I have found in the Archives,
unknown, of course, to the Director, a heap of letters--letters of Duke
Robert about Medea da Carpi, letters of Medea herself! Yes, Medea's own
handwriting--a round, scholarly character, full of abbreviations, with
a Greek look about it, as befits a learned princess who could read
Plato as well as Petrarch. The letters are of little importance, mere
drafts of business letters for her secretary to copy, during the time
that she governed the poor weak Guidalfonso. But they are her letters,
and I can imagine almost that there hangs about these moldering pieces
of paper a scent as of a woman's hair.

The few letters of Duke Robert show him in a new light. A cunning,
cold, but craven priest. He trembles at the bare thought of Medea--"la
pessima Medea"--worse than her namesake of Colchis, as he calls her.
His long clemency is a result of mere fear of laying violent hands upon
her. He fears her as something almost supernatural; he would have
enjoyed having had her burnt as a witch. After letter on letter,
telling his crony, Cardinal Sanseverino, at Rome his various
precautions during her lifetime--how he wears a jacket of mail under