Their property had been more than once confiscated by the popes, had been seized again by force of arms, and had been ultimately left to them for the mere sake of peace.

They seem to have quarrelled with everybody on every conceivable pretext, and to have generally got the best of the struggle.

No pope had ever reckoned upon the friendship of Casa Saracinesca.

For generations they had headed the opposition whenever there was one, and had plotted to form one when there was none ready to their hands.

It seemed to Del Ferice that in the stirring times that followed the annexation of Naples to the Italian crown, when all Europe was watching the growth of the new Power, it should be an easy matter to draw a Saracinesca into any scheme for the subversion of a Government against which so many generations of Saracinesca had plotted and fought.