Towards the middle of November, the French soldier who served me fell ill with an inflammation of the chest.
I informed the captain of his company, and the man was carried to the hospital. Four days later I heard that he would not recover and had received the last sacraments.
That evening I happened to be at Captain Camporese's quarters when the priest who had attended him came in.
"He is dead," said the priest.
He then placed a small parcel on the table.
"He entrusted this to me before dying. It was to be given to his captain, and only after his death."
Camporese opened it.
Inside were three things: a brass seal engraved with ducal arms, a certificate of baptism, and a sheet of paper covered with writing in French.
Captain Camporese, who only spoke Italian, begged me to translate the paper, the contents of which were as follows:
"My will is that this paper, which I have written and signed with my own hand, shall be delivered to my captain only after I have breathed my last: until then, my confessor shall not make any use of it, for I entrust it to his hands only under the seal of confession. I entreat my captain to have me buried in a vault from which my body can be exhumed in case the duke, my father, should request its exhumation. I entreat him likewise to forward my certificate of baptism, the seal with the armorial bearings of my family, and a legal certificate of my birth to the French ambassador in Venice, who will send the whole to the duke, my father, my rights of primogeniture belonging, after my demise, to the prince, my brother. In faith of which I have signed and sealed these presents:
Francois VI. Charles Philippe Louis Foucaud, Prince de la Rochefoucault."
The certificate of baptism, delivered at St. Sulpice gave the same names, and the title of the father was Francois V. The name of the mother was Gabrielle du Plessis.
As I finished the translation, I could not help bursting into loud laughter.
The foolish Captain Camporese did not share my amusement. He thought my laughter indecent.
He then took the paper, the seal, and the certificate, and hurried away to report the affair to the proveditore-generale.
I went to the coffee-house.
I did not doubt that his excellency would laugh at the captain, and that this post-mortem buffoonery would soon entertain all Corfu.
Yet the matter touched my memory.
In Rome, at Cardinal Acquaviva's, I had known the Abbé de Liancourt, great-grandson of Charles, whose sister, Gabrielle du Plessis, had married François V. But that belonged to the beginning of the last century.
I had once copied, from the cardinal's records, certain papers which the abbé wished to communicate to the court of Spain, and those papers contained many particulars concerning the house of Du Plessis.
The names, therefore, were not unknown to me.
Still, the imposture seemed absurd.
La Valeur, for that was the name by which my soldier usually went, could gain nothing by it. His secret was to be revealed only after his death.
Half an hour later, I was at the coffee-house, opening a fresh pack of cards, when the Adjutant Sanzonio came in to tell us the important news in the most serious manner.
He had just left the proveditore's office. Captain Camporese, he told us, had arrived there in great haste and placed in his excellency's hands the seal and papers of the deceased prince. His excellency had immediately issued his orders for the burial of the prince in a vault with all the honours due to his exalted rank.
Another half hour passed. Then M. Minolto, adjutant of the proveditore-generale, came to tell me that his excellency wished to see me.
I passed the cards to Major Maroli, and went to his excellency's house.
I found the old general at supper with several ladies, three or four naval commanders, Madame F., and M. D. R.
"So, your servant was a prince!" said the old general to me.
"Your excellency, I never would have suspected it, and even now that he is dead I do not believe it."
He frowned.
"Why? He is dead, but he was not insane. You have seen his armorial bearings, his certificate of baptism, as well as what he wrote with his own hand. When a man is so near death, he does not fancy practical jokes."
"If your excellency is satisfied of the truth of the story, my duty is to remain silent."
"The story cannot be anything but true, and your doubts surprise me."
"I doubt, monsignor, because I happen to have positive information respecting the families of La Rochefoucault and Du Plessis. Besides, I have seen too much of the man. He was not a madman, but he certainly was an extravagant jester. I have never seen him write, and he has told me himself a score of times that he had never learned."
"The paper he has written proves the contrary. His arms have the ducal bearings; but perhaps you are not aware that M. de la Rochefoucault is a duke and peer of the French realm?"
"I beg your eminence's pardon; I know all about it; I know even more, for I know that Francois VI. married a daughter of the house of Vivonne."
"You know nothing."
The words were as rude as they were foolish.
I resolved at once to say no more.
I saw, not without pleasure, the satisfaction and joy of the male guests. They thought the general had struck a blow at my vanity.
An officer observed that the dead man had been handsome, witty, and wonderfully clever in sustaining his disguise so well that no one had ever suspected his true condition.
A lady declared that, had she known him, she would certainly have found him out.
Another flatterer, belonging to that mean, contemptible race always to be found near the great and wealthy of the earth, assured us that the late prince had always shown himself cheerful, amiable, obliging, devoid of haughtiness towards his comrades, and that he used to sing beautifully.
"He was only twenty-five years of age," said Madame Sagredo, looking me full in the face, "and if he was endowed with all those qualities, you must have discovered them."
"I can only give you, madam, a true likeness of the man, such as I have seen him."
The room grew attentive.
"He was always gay, often even to folly, for he could throw a somersault beautifully; singing songs of a very erotic kind, full of stories and of popular tales of magic, miracles, and ghosts, and a thousand marvellous feats which common-sense refused to believe, and which, for that very reason, provoked the mirth of his hearers."
A few smiles appeared.
"As for his faults, he was drunken, dirty, quarrelsome, dissolute, and somewhat of a cheat. I put up with all his deficiencies, because he dressed my hair to my taste, and his constant chattering offered me the opportunity of practicing the colloquial French which cannot be acquired from books."
I continued, "He has always assured me that he was born in Picardy, the son of a common peasant, and that he had deserted from the French army. He may have deceived me when he said that he could not write."
At that moment Captain Camporese rushed into the room.
"La Valeur is still breathing."
The company stirred.
The general turned towards me with a significant look.
"I should be delighted if the man could be saved."
"And I likewise, monsignor, but his confessor will certainly kill him tonight."
That answer surprised him.
"Why should the confessor kill him?"
"To escape the galleys to which your excellency would not fail to send him for having violated the secrecy of the confessional."
Everybody burst out laughing, but the foolish old general knitted his brows.
The guests withdrew soon after.
Madame F. went down to her carriage on M. D. R.'s arm. I had gone ahead of them, and was standing near the door when she turned to me.
"Get in with us," she said. "It is raining."
It was the first time she had granted me such an honour.
I obeyed with the calmest face I could manage.
As soon as the carriage moved, she said,
"I am of your opinion about that prince, but you have incurred the displeasure of the proveditore."
"I am very sorry, madam, but it could not have been avoided, for I cannot help speaking the truth openly."
"You might have spared him," said M. D. R., "the cutting jest of the confessor killing the false prince."
"You are right, sir, but I thought it would make him laugh as well as it made madam and your excellency. In conversation people generally do not object to a witty jest causing merriment and laughter."
"True; only those who have not wit enough to laugh do not like the jest."
"I would wager a hundred sequins," I continued, "that the madman will recover, and that, having the general on his side, he will reap all the advantages of his imposture. I long to see him treated as a prince, and making love to Madame Sagredo."
Hearing the last words, Madame F-----, who did not like Madame Sagredo, laughed heartily.
The carriage stopped before her house.
As we stepped down, M. D. R. said,
"Come up with us."
This was new.
After supping with the general, he usually spent half an hour alone with Madame F. in her apartment. Her husband never showed himself.
Until that evening, no third person had been admitted to their tete-a-tete.
I followed them upstairs. I felt very proud of the compliment thus paid to me, and I thought it might have important results for me.
My satisfaction, which I concealed as well as I could, did not prevent me from being very gay and from giving a comic turn to every subject brought forward by the lady or by her lord.
We kept up our pleasant trio for four hours; and returned to the mansion of M. D---- R---- only at two o'clock in the morning.
It was on that night that they truly made my acquaintance.
She told M. D. R. that she had never laughed so much, and that she had not imagined a conversation, simple in appearance, could give so much pleasure.
On my side, I discovered in her so much wit and cheerfulness, that I became deeply enamored, and went to bed fully satisfied that, in the future, I could not keep up the show of indifference which I had so far assumed towards her.