there. Now, with regard to this coat-of-arms," and he closed the book to
detail to his stupefied companion the arms hardly visible on the cover,
"do you see a wolf, which was originally of gold, and turtles of gales?
Those are the arms which Montluc has borne since the year 1554, when he
was made a citizen of Siena for having defended it so bravely against the
terrible Marquis de Marignan. As for the box," he took it in its turn to
study it, "these are really the half-moons of the Piccolominis. But what
does that prove? That after the siege, and just as it was necessary to
retire to Montalcino, Montluc gave his prayer-book, as a souvenir, to
some of that family. The volume was either lost or stolen, and finally
reduced to the state in which 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