It was his
opinion, and it has been that which has most generally prevailed, that
the Duke d'Ossuna, the Marquis de Bedemar, and Don Pedro di Toledo,
governor of Milan, mutually concerted a plan for the destruction of
Venice; the chief execution of which was entrusted to Pierre and
Renault: and that, on the very eve of its explosion, Jaffier, one of
their band, touched by the magnificence of the Espousals of the Adriatic
which he had just witnessed, was shaken from his stern purpose, and
revealed the conspiracy. In order to overthrow the latter part of this
hypothesis, it may be sufficient to state that the first executions took
place on the 14th of May, 1618, and that it was not till the 24th of
that month that the Feast of Ascension, and its gorgeous ceremonies,
occurred in the same year.
[12] A translation of this document is given by Daru: the
original Italian may be found in the _Memorie recondite_ of
Vittorio Siri, i. 407.
Comte Daru, on the other hand, first explains a design which it is
notorious was entertained by the Duke d'Ossuna to convert his
viceroyalty of Naples into a kingdom, the crown of which, wrested from
Spain, should be placed on his own head.
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