hich it now is. This book, too, is proof that a little French
blood was shed in the service of Italy. But those who have sold it have
forgotten that, like Magenta and Solferino, you have only memory for
hatred. Now that you know why I want your prayer-book, will you sell it
to me for five hundred francs?"

The bookseller listened to that discourse with twenty contradictory
expressions upon his face. From force of habit he felt for Montfanon a
sort of respect mingled with animosity, which evidently rendered it very
painful for him to have been surprised in the act of telling an untruth.
It is necessary, to be just, to add that in speaking of the great painter
Matteo and of Pope Pius II in connection with that unfortunate volume, he
had not thought that the Marquis, ordinarily very economical and who
limited his purchases to the strict domain of ecclesiastical history,
would have the least desire for that prayer-book. He had magnified the
subject with a view to forming a legend and to taking advantage of some
rich, unversed amateur.

On the other hand, if the name of Montluc meant absolutely nothing to
him, it was not the same with the direct and brutal allusion which his
interlocutor had made to the war of 1859. It is always a thorn in the
flesh of those of our neighbors from beyond the Alps who do not love us.
The pride of the Garibaldian was not far behind the generosity of the
former zouave. With an abruptness equal to that of Montfanon, he took up
the volume and grumbled as he turned it over and over in his inky
fingers:

"I would not sell it for six hundred francs. No, I would not sell it for
six hundred francs."

"It is a very large sum," said Montfanon.

"No," continued the good man, "I would not sell it." Then extending it to
the Marquis, in evident excitement, he cried: "But to you I will sell it
for four hundred francs."

"But I have offered you five hundred francs for it," said the nonplussed
purchaser. "You know that is a small sum for such a curiosity."

"Take it for four," insisted Ribalta, growing more and more eager, "not a
sou less, not a sou more. It is what it cost me. And you shall have your
documents in two days and the Hafner papers this week. But was that
Bourbon who sacked Rome a Frenchman?" he continued. "And Charles d'Anjou,
who fell upon us to make himself King of the two Sicilies? And Charles
VIII, who entered by the Porte du Peuple? Were they Frenchmen? Why did
they come to meddle in