The Marchioness, who desired that Pauline should through her favour
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