You would laugh if I were to speak of its leniency.

The Duke Sforza Cesarini murders one of his servants for some act of personal disrespect.

For example's sake, the Pope condemns him to a month's retirement in a convent.
Ah! if any sacrilegious hand were laid upon the holy ark; if a priest were to be slain, a Cardinal only threatened, then would there be neither asylum, nor galleys, nor clemency, nor delay.

Thirty years ago the murderer of a priest was hewn in pieces in the Piazza del Popolo.
More recently, as we have seen, the idiot who brandished his fork in the face of Cardinal Antonelli, was beheaded.
It is with highway robbery as with murder.

I am induced to believe that the Pontifical court would not wage a very fierce war with the brigands, if those gentry undertook to respect its money and despatches.