his guilt by making donations to the church of La Ravissante near his home. He dies by throwing himself from the belvedere of the priory as an act of faith, believing that he will be miraculously borne by the angels of the Virgin Mary to La Ravissante. His will, which divides his estate between the Church and Clara, is contested by his "cousinry", who believe Miranda to have been insane when he made it, but the courts uphold the will, declaring Miranda's death to have been an accident. Writing and publication Having been originally told about the case of Antoine Mellerio in 1870 by his friend Joseph Milsand, Browning went on to research the facts with great thoroughness, reading newspaper reports and transcripts of the legal documents and interviewing residents of the district. Browning wrote Red Cotton Night-Cap Country during December 1872 and January 1873, while the lawsuit over Mellerio's will was still under appeal. He originally used the real names of the characters and places in the affaire Mellerio, but on submitting the manuscript to his friend Lord Coleridge, then Attorney-General, he was advised that he might be sued for libel. All the names were accordingly changed: Antoine Mellerio to Léonce Miranda, Anna de Beaupré to Clara de Millefleurs, Saint-Aubin to Saint-Rambert, and so on. The poem was published during the first week of May 1873 by Smith, Elder & Co., but they did not need to reprint it until, in 1889, along with The Inn Album, it formed volume 12 of his Poetical Works. Critical reception Reviews were mixed. The Spectator spoke for many when it said that "Mr. Browning has not succeeded in giving any true poetic excuse for telling a story so full of disagreeable elements." The anonymous reviewer in Harper's Magazine was undeterred by the fact that he had not read the poem through: It is not necessary to traverse every square mile of the Great Desert to know that its scenery is tame. We have read enough to know both the story and the manner in which it is told, and to enter our strong protest against the endeavour to glorify an illicit love with one who had been in succession a profligate woman and an unfaithful wife…It can only be characterized as harmless because the class of people who would be liable to be harmed by it will not understand nor even read