No sooner was he informed that he was the cause of our distress than he addressed himself to me with elaborate politeness—­all the more singular as that my appearance and equipage contrasted most unfavourably with his.  My clothes had not been improved by the adventures I had undergone; my linen was soiled; I had no baggage.  Virginia was respectably dressed and looked beautiful, but had no pretensions to a rank which she did not possess of herself and which I did not propose to give her.  For I had thought it only honourable in me, as I was dispensing with my father’s injunctions, to dispense also with his money.  I had renounced the world in which I had gained nothing but misery and crime.  In this fine gentleman’s eyes, therefore, I must have seemed a simple young artisan, and Virginia a pretty country girl.  However, he begged to be of service to us.  He was himself going to Lucca, he said.  If he took our horses it was only fair we should take seats in his chariot.  In fine, we should hurt him deeply if we did not.  All this was put before me with so much frankness and good humour that I could not well refuse it.  I saw, moreover, that in addition to my horses he had two of his own.  I accepted his offer, therefore, with many thanks.  He handed Virginia in with a bow; he begged me to precede him, which I did, but to the back seat.  He took the place next my wife, and we left Florence.

“If,” said this remarkable man, “I lay it down as an indispensable preliminary to our acquaintance, which I hope may be long and warm, that you accept me for a gentleman, it is because, as I do not happen to be one, I have devoted all my energies to demonstrating the exact contrary.  No man can help the accident of his birth.  My mother was an actress of Venice:  God knows who was my father, but I tell myself that he was peculiarly mine.  I was educated in the slips of the theatre of San Moise; at ten I ran away from home, and from the age of twelve made my fortune my own care.  It was then that I found out the advantages of being what I was not, for I observed that while nobody scrupled to cheat a gentleman if he could safely do it, nobody (on the other hand) resented the fact that a gentleman cheated him.  At the age of fifteen, when I served in Zante in the company of the noble Mocenigo, and received a decoration for gallantry and a commission of lieutenant, I killed my captain for permitting himself to doubt my gentility.  I should be sorry to have to reckon how many more have gone his way, or for how many years I have been obliged to shed blood in every new State I have chosen to inhabit.  Those days are past and over; my reputation is made; this order which I wear was presented to me by the Holy Father, and is at once my patent and my passport.  If I need another, it is here.”  He pointed to his sword, which reposed upon a narrow ledge of the chariot, behind my back.