e will NEVER talk about that subject again,
Cesare, or I shall see fantastic likenesses to Arthur in every face I
meet. It is a kind of hallucination, like a nightmare in broad daylight.
Just now, when that odious little fop came up, I fancied it was Arthur."

CHAPTER V.

THE Gadfly certainly knew how to make personal enemies. He had arrived
in Florence in August, and by the end of October three-fourths of the
committee which had invited him shared Martini's opinion. His savage
attacks upon Montanelli had annoyed even his admirers; and Galli
himself, who at first had been inclined to uphold everything the witty
satirist said or did, began to acknowledge with an aggrieved air that
Montanelli had better have been left in peace. "Decent cardinals are
none so plenty. One might treat them politely when they do turn up."

The only person who, apparently, remained quite indifferent to the storm
of caricatures and pasquinades was Montanelli himself. It seemed, as
Martini said, hardly worth while to expend one's energy in ridiculing
a man who took it so good-humouredly. It was said in the town that
Montanelli, one day when the Archbishop of Florence was dining with
him, had found in the room one of the Gadfly's bitter personal lampoons
against himself, had read it through and handed the paper to the
Archbishop, remarking: "That is rather cleverly put, is it not?"

One day there appeared in the town a leaflet, headed: "The Mystery
of the Annunciation." Even had the author omitted his now familiar
signature, a sketch of a gadfly with spread wings, the bitter, trenchant
style would have left in the minds of most readers no doubt as to his
identity. The skit was in the form of a dialogue between Tuscany as
the Virgin Mary, and Montanelli as the angel who, bearing the lilies of
purity and crowned with the olive branch of peace, was announcing the
advent of the Jesuits. The whole thing was full of offensive personal
allusions and hints of the most risky nature, and all Florence felt the
satire to be both ungenerous and unfair. And yet all Florence laughed.
There was something so irresistible in the Gadfly's grave absurdities
that those who most disapproved of and disliked him laughed as
immoderately at all his squibs as did his warmest partisans. Repulsive
in tone as the leaflet was, it left its trace upon the popular feeling
of the town. Montanelli's personal reputation stood too high for any
lampoon, however witty, seriously