After the departure of the heroine, catching through the crevice a glimpse of the abandoned lover, I called out to him to unlock my door.  The poor silly fellow told me piteously that, Catinella having taken the key with her, it would be necessary to break the door open.  I begged him to have it done at once, because I was hungry.  As soon as I was out of my prison I had my supper, and the unfortunate lover kept me company.  He told me that Catinella had found a moment to promise him that she would return within six weeks, that she was shedding tears in giving him that assurance, and that she had kissed him with great tenderness.

“Has the prince paid her expenses?”

“Not at all.  We would not have allowed him to do it, even if he had offered.  My future wife would have felt offended, for you can have no idea of the delicacy of her feelings.”

“What does your father say of her departure?”

“My father always sees the worst side of everything; he says that she will never come back, and my mother shares his opinion rather than mine.  But you, signor maestro, what do you think?”

“That if she has promised to return, she will be sure to keep her word.”

“Of course; for if she did not mean to come back, she would not have given me her promise.”

“Precisely; I call that a good argument.”

I had for my supper what was left of the meal prepared by the count’s cook, and I drank a bottle of excellent Rhenish wine which Catinella had juggled away to treat her intended husband, and which the worthy fellow thought could not have a better destination than to treat his future cousin.  After supper I took post-horses and continued my journey, assuring the unhappy, forlorn lover that I would do all I could to persuade my cousin to come back very soon.  I wanted to pay my bill, but he refused to receive any money.  I reached Bologna a few minutes after Catinella, and put up at the same hotel, where I found an opportunity of telling her all her lover had said.  I arrived in Reggio before her, but I could not speak to her in that city, for she was always in the company of her potent and impotent lord.  After the fair, during which nothing of importance occurred to me, I left Reggio with my friend Baletti and we proceeded to Turin, which I wanted to see, for the first time I had gone to that city with Henriette I had stopped only long enough to change horses.

I found everything beautiful in Turin, the city, the court, the theatre, and the women, including the Duchess of Savoy, but I could not help laughing when I was told that the police of the city was very efficient, for the streets were full of beggars.  That police, however, was the special care of the king, who was very intelligent; if we are to believe history, but I confess that I laughed when I saw the ridiculous face of that sovereign.

I had never seen a king before in my life, and a foolish idea made me suppose that a king must be preeminent—­a very rare being—­by his beauty and the majesty of his appearance, and in everything superior to the rest of men.  For a young Republican endowed with reason, my idea was not, after all, so very foolish, but I very soon got rid of it when I saw that King of Sardinia, ugly, hump-backed, morose and vulgar even in his manners.  I then realized that it was possible to be a king without being entirely a man.