“I can only give you, madam, a true likeness of the man, such as I have seen him.  Always gay, often even to folly, for he could throw a somersault beautifully; singing songs of a very erotic kind, full of stories and of popular tales of magic, miracles, and ghosts, and a thousand marvellous feats which common-sense refused to believe, and which, for that very reason, provoked the mirth of his hearers.  His faults were that he was drunken, dirty, quarrelsome, dissolute, and somewhat of a cheat.  I put up with all his deficiences, because he dressed my hair to my taste, and his constant chattering offered me the opportunity of practising the colloquial French which cannot be acquired from books.  He has always assured me that he was born in Picardy, the son of a common peasant, and that he had deserted from the French army.  He may have deceived me when he said that he could not write.”

Just then Camporese rushed into the room, and announced that La Veleur was yet breathing.  The general, looking at me significantly, said that he would be delighted if the man could be saved.

“And I likewise, monsignor, but his confessor will certainly kill him to-night.”

“Why should the father confessor kill him?”

“To escape the galleys to which your excellency would not fail to send him for having violated the secrecy of the confessional.”

Everybody burst out laughing, but the foolish old general knitted his
brows.  The guests retired soon afterwards, and Madame F-----, whom I had
preceded to the carriage, M. D——­ R——­ having offered her his arm,
invited me to get in with her, saying that it was raining.  It was the
first time that she had bestowed such an honour upon me.

“I am of your opinion about that prince,” she said, “but you have incurred the displeasure of the proveditore.”

“I am very sorry, madam, but it could not have been avoided, for I cannot help speaking the truth openly.”

“You might have spared him,” remarked M. D---- R-----, “the cutting jest
of the confessor killing the false prince.”

“You are right, sir, but I thought it would make him laugh as well as it made madam and your excellency.  In conversation people generally do not object to a witty jest causing merriment and laughter.”

“True; only those who have not wit enough to laugh do not like the jest.”

“I bet a hundred sequins that the madman will recover, and that, having the general on his side, he will reap all the advantages of his imposture.  I long to see him treated as a prince, and making love to Madame Sagredo”