haps you are not aware that M. de la Rochefoucault is a
duke and peer of the French realm?"

"I beg your eminence's pardon; I know all about it; I know even more, for
I know that Francois VI. married a daughter of the house of Vivonne."

"You know nothing."

When I heard this remark, as foolish as it was rude, I resolved on
remaining silent, and it was with some pleasure that I observed the joy
felt by all the male guests at what they thought an insult and a blow to
my vanity. An officer remarked that the deceased was a fine man, a witty
man, and had shewn wonderful cleverness in keeping up his assumed
character so well that no one ever had the faintest suspicion of what he
really was. A lady said that, if she had known him, she would have been
certain to find him out. Another flatterer, belonging to that mean,
contemptible race always to be found near the great and wealthy of the
earth, assured us that the late prince had always shewn himself cheerful,
amiable, obliging, devoid of haughtiness towards his comrades, and that
he used to sing beautifully. "He was only twenty-five years of age," said
Madame Sagredo, looking me full in the face, "and if he was endowed with
all those qualities, you must have discovered them."

"I can only give you, madam, a true likeness of the man, such as I have
seen him. Always gay, often even to folly, for he could throw a
somersault beautifully; singing songs of a very erotic kind, full of
stories and of popular tales of magic, miracles, and ghosts, and a
thousand marvellous feats which common-sense refused to believe, and
which, for that very reason, provoked the mirth of his hearers. His
faults were that he was drunken, dirty, quarrelsome, dissolute, and
somewhat of a cheat. I put up with all his deficiences, because he
dressed my hair to my taste, and his constant chattering offered me the
opportunity of practising the colloquial French which cannot be acquired
from books. He has always assured me that he was born in Picardy, the son
of a common peasant, and that he had deserted from the French army. He
may have deceived me when he said that he could not write."

Just then Camporese rushed into the room, and announced that La Veleur
was yet breathing. The general, looking at me significantly, said that he
would be delighted if the man could be saved.

"And I likewise, monsignor, but his confessor will certainly kill him
to-night."

"Why should the father confessor kill him?"