consideration much greater than I
could have hoped to obtain either through my position, or from my age, or
in consequence of any talent I might have shewn in the profession I had
adopted.

Towards the middle of November, the soldier who acted as my servant was
attacked with inflammation of the chest; I gave notice of it to the
captain of his company, and he was carried to the hospital. On the fourth
day I was told that he would not recover, and that he had received the
last sacraments; in the evening I happened to be at his captain's when
the priest who had attended him came to announce his death, and to
deliver a small parcel which the dying man had entrusted to him to be
given up to his captain only after his death. The parcel contained a
brass seal engraved with ducal arms, a certificate of baptism, and a
sheet of paper covered with writing in French. Captain Camporese, who
only spoke Italian, begged me to translate the paper, the contents of
which were as follows:

"My will is that this paper, which I have written and signed with my own
hand, shall be delivered to my captain only after I have breathed my
last: until then, my confessor shall not make any use of it, for I
entrust it to his hands only under the seal of confession. I entreat my
captain to have me buried in a vault from which my body can be exhumed in
case the duke, my father, should request its exhumation. I entreat him
likewise to forward my certificate of baptism, the seal with the armorial
bearings of my family, and a legal certificate of my birth to the French
ambassador in Venice, who will send the whole to the duke, my father, my
rights of primogeniture belonging, after my demise, to the prince, my
brother. In faith of which I have signed and sealed these presents:
Francois VI. Charles Philippe Louis Foucaud, Prince de la Rochefoucault."

The certificate of baptism, delivered at St. Sulpice gave the same names,
and the title of the father was Francois V. The name of the mother was
Gabrielle du Plessis.

As I was concluding my translation I could not help bursting into loud
laughter; but the foolish captain, who thought my mirth out of
place, hurried out to render an account of the affair to the
proveditore-generale, and I went to the coffee-house, not doubting for
one moment that his excellency would laugh at the captain, and that the
post-mortem buffoonery would greatly amuse the whole of Corfu.

I had known in Rome, at Cardinal Acquaviva's