“Why try to deceive me, Ribalta?” interrupted Montfanon, with a gesture of impatience.  “You know as well as I that these miniatures are very mediocre, and that they do not in the least resemble Matteo’s compact work; and another proof is that the prayerbook is dated 1554.  See!” and, with his remaining hand, very adroitly he showed the merchant the figures; “and as I have quite a memory for dates, and as I am interested in Siena, I have not forgotten that Matteo died before 1500.  I did not go to college with Machiavelli,” continued he, with some brusqueness, “but I will tell you that which the Cardinal would have told you if you had not deceived him by your finesse, as you tried to deceive me just now.  Look at this partly effaced signature, which you have not been able to read.  I will decipher it for you.  Blaise de Mo, and then a c, with several letters missing, just three, and that makes Montluc in the orthography of the time, and the b is in a handwriting which you might have examined in the archives of that same Siena, since you come from there.  Now, with regard to this coat-of-arms,” and he closed the book to detail to his stupefied companion the arms hardly visible on the cover, “do you see a wolf, which was originally of gold, and turtles of gales?  Those are the arms which Montluc has borne since the year 1554, when he was made a citizen of Siena for having defended it so bravely against the terrible Marquis de Marignan.  As for the box,” he took it in its turn to study it, “these are really the half-moons of the Piccolominis.  But what does that prove?  That after the siege, and just as it was necessary to retire to Montalcino, Montluc gave his prayer-book, as a souvenir, to some of that family.  The volume was either lost or stolen, and finally reduced to the state in which it now is.  This book, too, is proof that a little French blood was shed in the service of Italy.  But those who have sold it have forgotten that, like Magenta and Solferino, you have only memory for hatred.  Now that you know why I want your prayer-book, will you sell it to me for five hundred francs?”

The bookseller listened to that discourse with twenty contradictory expressions upon his face.  From force of habit he felt for Montfanon a sort of respect mingled with animosity, which evidently rendered it very painful for him to have been surprised in the act of telling an untruth.  It is necessary, to be just, to add that in speaking of the great painter Matteo and of Pope Pius II in connection with that unfortunate volume, he had not thought that the Marquis, ordinarily very economical and who limited his purchases to the strict domain of ecclesiastical history, would have the least desire for that prayer-book.  He had magnified the subject with a view to forming a legend and to taking advantage of some rich, unversed amateur.

On the other hand, if the name of Montluc meant absolutely nothing to him, it was not the same with the direct and brutal allusion which his interlocutor had made to the war of 1859.  It is always a thorn in the flesh of those of our neighbors from beyond the Alps who do not love us.  The pride of the Garibaldian was not far behind the generosity of the former zouave.  With an abruptness equal to that of Montfanon, he took up the volume and grumbled as he turned it over and over in his inky fingers: