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.

Imperia was the most precious, the most fantastic girl in the world,
although she passed for the most dazzling and the beautiful, and the
one who best understood the art of bamboozling cardinals and softening
the hardiest soldiers and oppressors of the people. She had brave
captains, archers, and nobles, ready to serve her at every turn. She
had only to breathe a word, and the business of anyone who had
offended her was settled. A free fight only brought a smile to her
lips, and often the Sire de Baudricourt--one of the King's Captains
--would ask her if there were any one he could kill for her that day
--a little joke at the expense of the abbots. With the exception of the
potentates among the high clergy with whom Madame Imperia managed to
accommodate her little tempers, she ruled everyone with a high hand in
virtue of her pretty babble and enchanting ways, which enthralled the
most virtuous and the most unimpressionable. Thus she lived beloved
and respected, quite as much as the real ladies and princesses, and
was called Madame, concerning which the good Emperor Sigismund replied
to a lady who complained of it to him, "That they, the good ladies,
might keep to their own proper way and holy virtues, and Madame
Imperia to the sweet naughtiness of the goddess Venus"--Christian
words which shocked the good ladies, to their credit be it said.

Philippe, then thinking over it in his mind that which on the
preceding evening he had seen with his eyes, doubted if more did not
remain behind. Then was he sad, and w