At last the end was visibly at hand. During the last ten days of his life, the Pope's mind was wholly gone. And in these ten days, by rapidly selling off for what she could get for them nominations to vacant benefices and "Prelature," Olympia is said to have amassed half a million of crowns! Her last transaction, was with a Canon who had been some time previously in treaty with her for a "Prelatura." He had offered fifty, while she had stood out for eighty thousand crowns; and the bargain had gone off. In the last hours of Innocent's life, she sent for this man, and told him she would take his fifty thousand. He said he had dissipated twenty thousand of the sum since that time, and had only thirty thousand left. "Well!" said the unblushing dealer, "since you can do no better, hand them over, and you shall have the Prelatura." So the money was paid, and the nomination obtained from the dying Pope, _in extremis_.
Innocent died on the 7th of January, 1655. Olympia caused the proper notices to be given to the officials, and immediately left the Vatican, and retired to her own palace secretly. She had employed the two nights previous to his death in transporting valuables thither to a great amount.
And now came for Olympia the great crisis of her fate. Her position was certainly a terrible one. The instant the Pope's death was known, a storm of long pent up hatred broke forth in execrations, accusations, and threats, on all sides. Olympia was under no delusion, as to her situation, and the general feeling of Rome towards her. She knew how much and how justly she was hated. She knew that she had been guilty of crimes abundantly sufficient to put not only her wealth, but her life in danger; and that a thousand tongues were ready to bear undeniable witness against her.
But Olympia was very far from giving up the game as lost. She had enormous command of money; she was well acquainted with the secret motives and wishes of parties in Rome; thoroughly skilled in the subtle underhand tactics of trading on every evil passion, which is what is meant by policy in that ecclesiastical world; and imbued with that profound faith in the thorough meanness and baseness of the highest as well as the lowest of mankind, which people of her stamp consider to be knowledge of the world. Though hated by the great majority of Cardinals as well as by the people of Rome, she was not without friends and creatures. Corrupt motives of interest had enabled her some time previously to Innocent's death, to make alliance with the powerful faction of the Barberini. And thus strong in these arms and means of defence, she sat in the privacy of her palace—(for to have appeared in the streets of Rome, especially during the lawless period of an interregnum, would have been extremely dangerous) and directed the intrigues, by means of which she counted on escaping the consequences of the universal indignation.