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Michael Angelo also cast a bronze group of the Madonna with her Son in her lap, which was sent into Flanders by certain Flemish merchants, the Moscheroni, great people at home; they paid him one hundred ducats for it. And, in order not altogether to give up painting, he executed a round panel of Our Lady for Messer Agnolo Doni, a Florentine citizen, for which he received seventy ducats.

I was tired of the pleasure, the misfortune, and the griefs I had had in three capitals, and I resolved to spend four months in the free city of Augsburg, where strangers have the same privileges as the canons. My purse was slender, but with the economical life I led I had nothing to fear on that score. I was not far from Venice, where a hundred ducats were always at my service if I wanted them.

With this sum of thirty-five shillings in English money, and consisting of two Dutch ducats and five Prussian dollars, I started to tramp the two hundred miles between Hamburg and Berlin. As a matter of explanation it may be stated that, during a residence of seven months in Hamburg, I had acquired enough of the German language to trust myself alone in the country.

"Two thousand ducats, your majesty," muttered the dealers, frightened out of their wits, and telling the truth in their fright. The gentleman was not present: he was a trusted counselor in art matters of the king's, and often made purchases for him. The king smiled a little, and said nothing. The gentleman had made out the price to him as eleven thousand ducats.

I have made a bank of four thousand ducats that you may be able to recoup yourself for your losses." "Thanks, I promise to break it or to lose as much." I drew out six thousand ducats, gave two thousand ducats to the Duke de Matalone, and began to punt at a hundred ducats. After a short time the duke left the table, and I finally succeeded in breaking the bank.

And then she forgot her own grief, and became all solicitude for him, until naught would content her but she must empty into his hands her little store of treasure a hundred ducats and such jewels as she possessed, including a gold watch set with diamonds and a ring bearing a cameo portrait of King Philip, and last of all a portrait of herself, of the size of a playing-card.

This gentleman gave me an excellent reception, and told me that the sovereign hand ordered him to give me my passport, my salary for a year, and a hundred ducats for the journey. The money will be forwarded in a fortnight, as my name will have to be sent to the Gazette." Madame Valville was very grateful, and we fixed the day of our departure.

This mode of life for a time had its temptations and its success; and he hoped that he might still better assist his father at Vienna than at Salzburg, as he was at intervals able to remit to him sums of from ten to thirty ducats. But here commenced the precarious existence which the composer was for the future destined to lead.

"You would pay for that?" he questioned, half mockingly. "Oh, but for that a stipend of three hundred ducats is too little." And all the time his eyes were upon his wife, and I saw her stiffen as if she had been struck. But the Cardinal laughed outright. "Come now, you use me with an amiable frankness," he said. "The stipend shall be doubled when you join the council." "Doubled?" he said.

But she could not hold on to her gold. She had flung it away like useless rubbish. So long as she possessed anything there had been no want in Loni's company. She, Gundel, had caught her arm more than once when she was going to fling Hungarian ducats, instead of coppers, to good-for-nothing beggars.