vour
make a more wealthy marriage, discouraged her as much as she could from
wedding the gentleman, and often hindered the two lovers from talking
together, pointing out to them that, should the marriage take place,
they would be the poorest and sorriest couple in all Italy. But such
argument as this was by no means convincing to the gentleman, and though
Pauline, on her side, dissembled her love as well as she could, she none
the less thought about him as often as before.

With the hope that time would bring them better fortune, this love of
theirs continued for a long while, during which it chanced that a war
broke out (3) and that the gentleman was taken prisoner along with a
Frenchman, whose heart was bestowed in France even as was his own in
Italy.

3 This would be the expedition which Louis XII. made into
Italy in 1503 in view of conquering the Kingdom of Naples,
and which was frustrated by the defeats that the French army
sustained at Seminara, Cerignoles, and the passage of the
Garigliano.--D.

Finding themselves comrades in misfortune, they began to tell their
secrets to one another, the Frenchman confessing that his heart was a
fast prisoner, though he gave not the name of its prison-house. However,
as they were both in the service of the Marquis of Mantua, this French
gentleman knew right well that his companion loved Pauline, and in all
friendship for him advised him to lay his fancy aside. This the Italian
gentleman swore was not in his power, and he declared that if the
Marquis of Mantua did not requite him for his captivity and his faithful
service by giving him his sweetheart to wife, he would presently turn
friar and serve no master but God. This, however, his companion could
not believe, perceiving in him no token of devotion, unless it were that
which he bore to Pauline.

At the end of nine months the French gentleman obtained his freedom, and
by his diligence compassed that of his comrade also, who thereupon used
all his efforts with the Marquis and Marchioness to bring about his
marriage with Pauline. But all was of no avail; they pointed out to him
the poverty wherein they would both be forced to live, as well as the
unwillingness of the relatives on either side; and they forbade him
ever again to speak with the maiden, to the end that absence and lack of
opportunity might quell his passion.

Finding himself compelled to obey, the gentleman begged of the
Marchioness