th, and a regular cleric, and my companion is Count Andre
Asquin, of Udine, the capital of Friuli. He begs me to inform you that
all the books in his possession, of which you will find a list at the
back of this volume, are at your service; but we warn you that we must
use all possible care to prevent our correspondence being discovered by
Lawrence."

In our position there was nothing wonderful in our both pitching on the
idea of sending each other the catalogues of our small libraries, or in
our choosing the same hiding-place--the back of the books; all this was
plain common sense; but the advice to be careful contained on the loose
leaf struck me with some astonishment. It seemed next to impossible that
Lawrence should leave the book unopened, but if he had opened it he would
have seen the leaf, and not knowing how to read he would have kept it in
his pocket till he could get someone to tell him the contents, and thus
all would have been strangled at its birth. This made me think that my
correspondent was an arrant block-head.

After reading through the list, I wrote who I was, how I had been
arrested, my ignorance as to what crime I had committed, and my hope of
soon becoming free. Balbi then wrote me a letter of sixteen pages, in
which he gave me the history of all his misfortunes. He had been four
years in prison, and the reason was that he had enjoyed the good graces
of three girls, of whom he had three children, all of whom he baptized
under his own name.

The first time his superior had let him off with an admonition, the
second time he was threatened with punishment, and on the third and last
occasion he was imprisoned. The father-superior of his convent brought
him his dinner every day. He told me in his letter that both the superior
and the Tribunal were tyrants, since they had no lawful authority over
his conscience: that being sure that the three children were his, he
thought himself constrained as a man of honour not to deprive them of the
advantage of bearing his name. He finished by telling me that he had
found himself obliged to recognize his children to prevent slander
attributing them to others, which would have injured the reputation of
the three honest girls who bore them; and besides he could not stifle the
voice of nature, which spoke so well on behalf of these little ones. His
last words were, "There is no danger of the superior falling into the
same fault, as he confines his attention to the b