delightful and happy events of my life, and on many misfortunes so
truly overwhelming that the appalling retrospect makes me wonder how I
have reached this age in vigour and prosperity, through God's goodness
I have resolved to publish an account of my life; and ... I must, in
commencing my narrative, satisfy the public on some few points to
which its curiosity is usually directed; the first of which is to
ascertain whether a man is descended from a virtuous and ancient
family.... I shall therefore now proceed to inform the reader how it
pleased God that I should come into the world.'

So you read on page 1; what you read on page 191 is this:--

'Just after sunset, about eight o'clock, as this musqueteer stood at
his door with his sword in his hand, when he had done supper, I with
great address came close up to him with a long dagger, and gave him a
violent back-handed stroke, which I aimed at his neck. He instantly
turned round, and the blow, falling directly upon his left shoulder,
broke the whole bone of it; upon which he dropped his sword, quite
overcome by the pain, and took to his heels. I pursued, and in four
steps came up with him, when, raising the dagger over his head, which
he lowered down, I hit him exactly upon the nape of the neck. The
weapon penetrated so deep that, though I made a great effort to
recover it again, I found it impossible.'

So much for murder. Now for manslaughter, or rather Cellini's notion
of manslaughter.

'Pompeo entered an apothecary's shop at the corner of the Chiavica,
about some business, and stayed there for some time. I was told he had
boasted of having bullied me, but it turned out a fatal adventure to