[Illustration: 001a.jpg The Parting between Pauline and The Gentlemen]

[The Parting between Pauline and The Gentlemen]

[Illustration: 001.jpg Page Image]




_TALE XIX_.

_Pauline, being in love with a gentleman no less than he was with her,
and finding that he, because forbidden ever again to speak with her, had
entered the monastery of the Observance, gained admittance for her
own part into the convent of St. Clara, where she took the veil; thus
fulfilling the desire she had conceived to bring the gentleman's love
and her own to a like ending in respect of raiment, condition and manner
of life. (1)_

In the time of the Marquis of Mantua, (2) who had married the sister
of the Duke of Ferrara, there lived in the household of the Duchess
a damsel named Pauline, who was greatly loved by a gentleman in the
Marquis's service, and this to the astonishment of every one; for being
poor, albeit handsome and greatly beloved by his master, he ought, in
their estimation, to have wooed some wealthy dame, but he believed that
all the world's treasure centred in Pauline, and looked to his marriage
with her to gain and possess it.

1 The incidents related in this tale appear to have taken
place at Mantua and Ferrara. M. de Montaiglon, however,