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A few days later Manucci set out for Naples, after giving a hundred louis to Medini's mistress, who used to sup with him; but this windfall did not save Medini from being imprisoned for debt, his liabilities amounting to more than a thousand crowns.
"There is a very great hurry. I cannot breathe the air of a country where liberty is unknown and the sovereign breaks his word; that is what I am going to write to your master." As I was going out I met Medini, who had come on the same business as myself. I laughed, and informed him of the results of my interview, and how I had been told to go to Pisa. "What! have you been expelled, too?" "Yes."
"There is a very great hurry. I cannot breathe the air of a country where liberty is unknown and the sovereign breaks his word; that is what I am going to write to your master." As I was going out I met Medini, who had come on the same business as myself. I laughed, and informed him of the results of my interview, and how I had been told to go to Pisa. "What! have you been expelled, too?" "Yes."
The same publications turn Medini into Medici, which is equally harmless. This species of lie arises from the idiotic pride of the nobles who think themselves raised above the rest of humanity by their titles which they have often acquired by some act of baseness.
As Medini was endeavouring to staunch the blood in a basin of water, the vetturino told him that as I refused to be his surety he must go to prison. I was moved by the scene that I had witnessed, and said to the vetturino, "Give him a fortnight's respite, and if he escapes before the expiration of that term I will pay you." He thought it over for a few moments, and then said,
I had measured swords for the third time with Count Medini who died four years ago at London, in prison for his debts. "Having considerable money, I went to Florence, where, during the Christmas Festival, the Archduke Leopold, the Emperor who died four or five years ago, ordered me to leave his dominions within three days. I had a mistress who, by my advice, became Marquise de * at Bologna.
I pitied him sincerely, and said that though I was not a rich man he was welcome to dine every day at my expense while I remained in Naples, and I gave him a sequin. Two or three days later my man told me that the poor wretch had committed suicide. In his room were found five numbers, which he bequeathed to Medini and myself out of gratitude for our kindness to him.
As it happened it was the same man who had taken me to Rome with the Englishwoman who had been seduced by the actor l'Etoile. I told him to wait a moment. Medini who was a great talker and a dreadful liar thought to persuade me by shewing me a number of open letters, commending him in pompous terms to the best houses in Florence.
I do not know how Medini found out that I was at Florence, but he wrote me a letter begging me to come and deliver him from the police, who besieged his room and talked of taking him to prison. He said he only wanted me to go bail for him, and protested that I should not run any risk, as he was sure of being able to pay in a few days.
The younger sister, who was by far the handsomer of the two, afterwards became the wife of Prince Gonzaga Solferino. The prince was a cultured man, and even a genius, but very poor. For all that he was a true son of Gonzaga, being a son of Leopold, who was also poor, and a girl of the Medini family, sister to the Medini who died in prison at London in the year 1787.
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