o the aforesaid margraves and burgraves, she gave them the tail of
her dress to hold, and said that if she did not tread them under foot,
they would trample upon her. Madame confessed to her servants that,
differently to all other men she had had to put up with, the more she
fondled this child of love, the more she desired to do so, and that
she would never be able to part with him; nor his splendid eyes, which
blinded her; nor his branch of coral, that she always hungered after.
She further declared that if such were his desire, she would let him
suck her blood, eat her breasts--which were the most lovely in the
world--and cut her tresses, of which she had only given a single one
to the Emperor of the Romans, who kept it in his breast, like a
precious relic; finally, she confessed that on that night only had
life begun for her, because the embrace of Villiers de l'Ile Adam sent
the blood to her in three bounds and in a brace of shakes.

These expressions becoming known, made everyone very miserable.
Directly she went out, Imperia told the ladies of Rome that she should
die it if she were deserted by this gentleman, and would cause
herself, like Queen Cleopatra, to be bitten by an asp. She declared
openly that she had bidden an eternal adieu her to her former gay
life, and would show the whole world what virtue was by abandoning her
empire for this Villiers de l'Ile Adam, whose servant she would rather
be than reign of Christendom. The English cardinal remonstrated with
the pope that this love for one, in the heart of a woman who was the
joy of all, was an infamous depravity, and that he ought with a brief
_in partibus_, to annul this marriage, which robbed the fashionable
world of its principal attraction. But the love of this poor woman,
who had confessed the miseries of her life, was so sweet a thing, and
so moved the most dissipated heart, that she silenced all clamour, and
everyone forgave her her happiness. One day, during Lent, Imperia made
her people fast, and ordered them to go and confess, and return to
God. She herself went and fell at the pope's feet, and there showed
such penitence, that she obtained from him remission of all her sins,
believing that the absolution of the pope would communicate to her
soul that virginity which she was grieved at being unable to offer her
lover. It is impossible to help thinking that there was some virtue in
the ecclesiastical piscina, for the poor cadet was so smothered with