The Diamond Cross;

or,

The Female Assassin

by Oliver Sinclair

During the first few months of my sojourn at Rome, I witnessed one of those heart-rending dramas, replete with thrilling interest, of which the imperial city is, but too often, the melancholy theater.

A Neapolitan cavalier, named Luzzi, had fixed upon Rome as his place of residence from the year 1820. His birth, his intelligence, his refined, polished, and fascinating address, and above all, the exquisite manly beauty of his face, and the elegant symmetry of his figure, had, immediately upon his arrival, facilitated his entry into all the most ancient and distinguished houses of Rome. Among those in which he was welcomed with the most cordial favor, was cited the palace of the Marquis of Caraglio, a man of brilliant fortune and an indefatigable votary of pleasure.

The Marquis had been married from his twentieth year (he was then thirty-six) to Giulia de Staroli, a descendant of one of the noblest families of Ravenna. This union, however, was productive of the most uninterrupted happiness, in spite of the boundless difference which existed between the characters of the amiable couple. Indeed, in proportion as the Marquis was an impassioned devotee to the fascinations and excesses of gay society, and found his chief delight in mingling with the giddy throng of midnight revelers around the jovial board, so much did Giulia, on the contrary, appear to love the purer sweets of solitude, and to cherish a devoted attachment to the more simple, though more lasting pleasures of domestic peace and contentment. The sprightly and highly cultivated mind, and the incomparable beauty of the marchioness, might have entitled her to the most elevated rank among the most beautiful, fashionable and accomplished women of Rome; but she preferred the quiet charms of… Read More