Fortunately the colonel stopped this act of violence.
It is hardly necessary to mention that an official statement was at once drawn up, or that the mayor sent the prefect a report, in his sublimest style, describing the manner in which all laws, human and divine, had been trodden under foot--how the majesty of himself, the mayor, and of the priest had been flouted and insulted, and how Colonel della Rebbia had put himself at the head of a Bonapartist plot, to change the order of succession to the throne, and to excite peaceful citizens to take arms against one another--crimes provided against by Articles 86 and 91 of the Penal Code.
The exaggerated tone of this complaint diminished its effect.

The colonel wrote to the prefect and to the public prosecutor.

One of his wife's kinsmen was related to one of the deputies of the island, another was cousin to the president of the Royal Court.

Thanks to this interest, the plot faded out of sight, Signora della Rebbia was left quiet in the wood, and the idiot alone was sentenced to a fortnight's imprisonment.
Lawyer Barricini, dissatisfied with the result of this affair, turned his batteries in a different direction.

He dug out some old claim, whereby he undertook to contest the colonel's ownership of a certain water-course which turned a mill-wheel.