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The Tribunal of Health published a decree, offering a reward to

whomsoever should discover the author or authors of this attempt;

but they did this, as they wrote to the governor, only to satisfy

the people and calm their fears,-a weak and dangerous expedient,

and calculated to confirm the popular belief.

In the mean time many attributed this story of the poisoned

ointment to the revenge of Gonsalvo Fernandez de Cordova; others

to Cardinal Richelieu, in order the more easily to get possession

of Milan; others again affixed the crime to various Milanese

gentlemen.