Clothed in black satin breeches, a violet velvet coat cut a la Francaise, a white waistcoat embroidered in gold, from which issued an enormous shirt-frill of point d’Angleterre, this skeleton had cheeks covered with a thick layer of rouge which heightened still further the parchment tones of the rest of his skin.  Upon his head was a blond wig frizzed into innumerable little curls, surmounted by an immense plumed hat jauntily perched to one side in a manner which irresistibly provoked the laughter of even the most respectful visitors.

After one glance given to this ridiculous and lamentable exhibition, —­an obligatory part of all funerals, according to the etiquette of the Roman aristocracy,—­Desroziers exclaimed:  “There’s the end; now come and see the beginning.”

Not replying to any of my questions, because he was arranging a dramatic effect, he took me to the Albani gallery and placed me before a statue representing Adonis stretched on a lion’s skin.

“What do you think of that?” he said.

“What?” I replied at a first glance; “why, it is as fine as an antique.”

“Antique as much as I am!” replied Desroziers.  “It is a portrait in youth of that wizened old being we have just seen dead.”

“Antique or not, it is a masterpiece,” I said.  “But how is all this beauty, or its hideous caricature, to get us to Sicily?  That is the question.”

“I’ll tell you,” replied Desroziers.  “I know the family of that old scarecrow.  His niece married the Comte de Lanty, and they have long wanted to buy this statue which the Albani museum won’t give up at any price.  They have tried to have it copied, but they never got anything satisfactory.  Now, you know the director of the museum well.  Get him to let you make a copy of it.  I give music-lessons to the Comte de Lanty’s daughter, Mademoiselle Marianina, and I’ll talk of your copy.  If you succeed, as of course you will, the count will buy it and pay you forty times the cost of a trip to Sicily.”

Two days later I began the work, and, as it suited my taste, I worked so hotly at it that by the end of three weeks the Lanty family, escorted by Desroziers, came to see my copy.  The count, who seemed to me a good connoisseur, declared himself satisfied with the work and bought it.  Mademoiselle Marianina, who was the heiress and favorite of her grand-uncle, was particularly delighted with it.  Marianina was then about twenty-one years old, and I shall not make you her portrait because you know Madame de l’Estorade, to whom her likeness is extraordinary.  Already an accomplished musician, this charming girl had a remarkable inclination for all the arts.  Coming from time to time to my studio to watch the completion of the statue, a taste for sculpture seized her, as it did the Princesse Marie d’Orleans, and until the departure of the family, which took place a few months before I myself left Rome, Mademoiselle de Lanty took lessons from me in modelling.