He was by profession a notary, and his pride was to make false documents; he
would have made them as often as he was asked, and more readily without fee
than another at a great price; few indeed he made that were not false, and,
great was his shame when they were discovered. False witness he bore,
solicited or unsolicited, with boundless delight; and, as oaths were in
those days had in very great respect in France, he, scrupling not to
forswear himself, corruptly carried the day in every case in which he was
summoned faithfully to attest the truth. He took inordinate delight, and
bestirred himself with great zeal, in fomenting ill-feeling, enmities,
dissensions between friends, kinsfolk and all other folk; and the more
calamitous were the consequences the better he was pleased. Set him on
murder, or any other foul crime, and he never hesitated, but went about it
with alacrity; he had been known on more than one occasion to inflict wounds
or death by preference with his own hands. He was a profuse blasphemer of
God and His saints, and that on the most trifling occasions, being of all
men the most irascible. He was never seen at Church, held all the sacraments
vile things, and derided them in language of horrible ribaldry. On the other
hand he resorted readily to the tavern and other places of evil repute, and
frequented them. He was as fond of women as a dog is of the stick: in the
use against nature he had not his match among the most abandoned. He would
have pilfered and stolen as a matter of conscience, as a holy man would make
an oblation. Most gluttonous he was and inordinately fond of his cups,
whereby he sometimes brought upon himself both shame and suffering. He was
also a practised gamester and thrower of false dice. But why enlarge so much
upon him? Enough that he was, perhaps, the worst man that ever was born.

The rank and power of Musciatto Franzesi had long been this reprobate's
mainstay, serving in many instances to secure him considerate treatment on
the part of the private persons whom he frequently, and the court which he
unremittingly, outraged. So Musciatto, having bethought him of this Ser