she going to deprive the world of
love?" Some of the ambassadors wrote to their masters on the subject.
The Emperor of the Romans was much cut up about it, because he had
loved her to distraction for eleven weeks; had left her only to go to
the wars, and loved her still as much as his most precious member,
which according to his own statement, was his eye, for that alone
embraced the whole of his dear Imperia. In this extremity the Pope
sent for a Spanish physician, and conducted him to the beautiful
creature, to whom he proved, by various arguments, adorned with Latin
and Greek quotations, that beauty is impaired by tears and
tribulation, and that through sorrow's door wrinkles step in. This
proposition, confirmed by the doctors of the Holy College in
controversy, had the effect of opening the doors of the palace that
same evening. The young cardinals, the foreign envoys, the wealthy
inhabitants, and the principal men of the town of Rome came, crowded
the rooms, and held a joyous festival; the common people made grand
illuminations, and thus the whole population celebrated the return of
the Queen of Pleasure to her occupation, for she was at that time the
presiding deity of Love. The experts in all the arts loved her much,
because she spent considerable sums of money improving the Church in
Rome, which contained poor Theodora's tomb, which was destroyed during
that pillage of Rome in which perished the traitorous constable of
Bourbon, for this holy maiden was placed therein in a massive coffin
of gold and silver, which the cursed soldiers were anxious to obtain.
The basilic cost, it is said, more than the pyramid erected by the
Lady Rhodepa, an Egyptian courtesan, eighteen hundred years before the
coming of our divine Saviour, which proves the antiquity of this
pleasant occupation, the extravagant prices which the wise Egyptians
paid for their pleasures, and how things deteriorate, seeing that now
for a trifle you can have a chemise full of female loveliness in the
Rue du Petit-Heulen, at Paris. Is it not abomination?

Never had Madame Imperia appeared so lovely as at this first gala
after her mourning. All the princes, cardinals, and others declared
that she was worthy the homage of the whole world, which was there
represented by a noble from every known land, and thus was it amply
demonstrated that beauty was in every place queen of everything.

The envoy of the King of France, who was a cadet of the house of l'Ile