greatest perfections appertaining to woman.

A little before dinner-time we repaired to General Spada's mansion, and
the general presented the two officers to all the ladies. Not one of them
was deceived in the young officer, but, being already acquainted with the
adventure, they were all delighted to dine with the hero of the comedy,
and treated the handsome officer exactly as if he had truly been a man,
but I am bound to confess that the male guests offered the Frenchwoman
homages more worthy of her sex.

Madame Querini alone did not seem pleased, because the lovely stranger
monopolized the general attention, and it was a blow to her vanity to see
herself neglected. She never spoke to her, except to shew off her French,
which she could speak well. The poor captain scarcely opened his lips,
for no one cared to speak Latin, and the general had not much to say in
German.

An elderly priest, who was one of the guests, tried to justify the
conduct of the bishop by assuring us that the inn-keeper and the 'sbirri'
had acted only under the orders of the Holy Office.

"That is the reason," he said, "for which no bolts are allowed in the
rooms of the hotels, so that strangers may not shut themselves up in
their chambers. The Holy Inquisition does not allow a man to sleep with
any woman but his wife."

Twenty years later I found all the doors in Spain with a bolt outside, so
that travellers were, as if they had been in prison, exposed to the
outrageous molestation of nocturnal visits from the police. That disease
is so chronic in Spain that it threatens to overthrow the monarchy some