Page:Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia (IA cu31924012301754).pdf/357

 It is clear that Barbier expected to find support in the Acts of the trial for the assumed torture of Galileo; and as they reported nothing of the kind, and could not report anything consistently with the facts of history, the librarian entirely overlooked the vast importance of the papers. After this report Count Blacas felt no scruple about letting the Papal Commissary have them. On 15th December the minister wrote a note to Barbier, asking him for the volume of documents, that he might himself hand it to Marini. He also wrote to the Papal Commissary that the documents had been found, and that it would give him great pleasure to deliver them to him. Marini accordingly went three times to the minister's hotel, and once to the Tuileries, but without success. He therefore begged, in a letter of 28th January, 1815, to have a day and hour appointed for an audience. To his dismay he received in reply a letter from Count Blacas of 2nd February, 1815, saying that the King himself wished to look through the trial of Galileo, that the MS. was in his majesty's cabinet, and therefore could not be given up immediately, but it should be done as soon as the King had returned it.

Marini was therefore on the track of the documents, though he did not get them. But only twenty-four days after he received this explanation the famous hundred days occurred, and Louis XVIII. left his palace in the darkness of night for Ghent. Napoleon had scarcely set out for St. Helena, and the legitimate sovereign made his entry into Paris, than we find the Papal Commissary again eagerly trying to get back the precious MS. But what must have been his dismay when he was informed by Count Pradel, temporary successor of Count Blacas, on 6th November, 1815, that the documents were no longer to be found Y