Once in his little room he counted his coins all night long, but could make no more than four of them; and as that was all his treasure, he counted upon satisfying the fair one by giving her all he had in the world.

“What is it ails you?” said the good archbishop, uneasy at the groans and “oh! ohs!” of his clerk.

“Ah! my Lord,” answered the poor priest, “I am wondering how it is that so light and sweet a woman can weigh so heavily upon my heart.”

“Which one?” said the archbishop, putting down his breviary which he was reading for others—­the good man.

“Oh!  Mother of God!  You will scold me, I know, my good master, my protector, because I have seen the lady of a cardinal at the least, and I am weeping because I lack more than one crown to enable me to convert her.”

The archbishop, knitting the circumflex accent that he had above his nose, said not a word.  Then the very humble priest trembled in his skin to have confessed so much to his superior.  But the holy man directly said to him, “She must be very dear then—­”

“Ah!” said he, “she has swallowed many a mitre and stolen many a cross.”

“Well, Philippe, if thou will renounce her, I will present thee with thirty angels from the poor-box.”

“Ah! my lord, I should be losing too much,” replied the lad, emboldened by the treat he promised himself.

“Ah!  Philippe,” said the good prelate, “thou wilt then go to the devil and displease God, like all our cardinals,” and the master, with sorrow, began to pray St. Gatien, the patron saint of Innocents, to save his servant.  He made him kneel down beside him, telling him to recommend himself also to St. Philippe, but the wretched priest implored the saint beneath his breath to prevent him from failing if on the morrow that the lady should receive him kindly and mercifully; and the good archbishop, observing the fervour of his servant, cried out him, “Courage little one, and Heaven will exorcise thee.”

On the morrow, while Monsieur was declaiming at the Council against the shameless behaviour of the apostles of Christianity, Philippe de Mala spent his angels—­acquired with so much labour—­in perfumes, baths, fomentations, and other fooleries.  He played the fop so well, one would have thought him the fancy cavalier of a gay lady.  He wandered about the town in order to find the residence of his heart’s queen; and when he asked the passers-by to whom belonged the aforesaid house, they laughed in his face, saying—­

“Whence comes this precious fellow that has not heard of La Belle Imperia?”

He was very much afraid he and his angels were gone to the devil when he heard the name, and knew into what a nice mess he had voluntarily fallen.