We cannot comprehend the regicidal theories of the Jesuits, or the murderous intrigues of a Borghese Pontiff's Court, without admitting that priests, specially dedicated to the service of Christ and to the propagation of his gospel, felt themselves justified in employing the immoral and unchristian means which social custom placed at their disposal for ridding themselves of inconvenient enemies.

This is at the same time their defense as human beings in the sixteenth century, and their indictment as self-styled and professed successors of the Founder who rebuked Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane.
To make general remarks upon the state of sexual morality at this epoch, is hardly needful.

Yet there are some peculiar circumstances which deserve to be noticed, in order to render the typical stories which I mean to relate intelligible.

We have already seen that society condoned the murder of a sister by a brother, if she brought dishonor on her family; and the same privilege was extended to a husband in the case of a notoriously faithless wife.

Such homicides did not escape judicial sentence, but they shared in the conventional toleration which was extended to murders in hot blood or in the prosecution of a feud.