Mosca might have been forty or forty-five; he had strongly marked features, with no trace of self-importance, and a simple and light-hearted manner which was greatly in his favour; he would have looked very well indeed, if a whim on the part of his Prince had not obliged him to wear powder on his hair as a proof of his soundness in politics. As people have little fear of wounding one another's vanity, they quickly arrive in Italy at a tone of intimacy, and make personal observations. The antidote to this practice is not to see the other person again if one's feelings have been hurt.

"Tell me, Conte, why do you powder your hair?" Signora Pietranera asked him at their third meeting. "Powder! A man like you, attractive, still young, who fought on our side in Spain!"

"Because, in the said Spain, I stole nothing, and one must live. I was athirst for glory; a flattering word from the French General, Gouvion Saint-Cyr, who commanded us, was everything to me then. When Napoleon fell, it so happened that while I was eating up my patrimony in his service, my father, a man of imagination, who pictured me as a general already, had been building me a palazzo at Parma. In 1813 I found that my whole worldly wealth consisted of a huge palazzo, half-finished, and a pension."

A MINISTER

"A pension: 3,500 francs, like my husband's?"

"Conte Pietranera commanded a Division. My pension, as a humble squadron commander, has never been more than 800 francs, and even that has been paid to me only since I became Minister of Finance."

As there was nobody else in the box but the lady of extremely liberal views to whom it belonged, the conversation continued with the same frankness. Conte Mosca, when questioned, spoke of his life at Parma. "In Spain, under General Saint-Cyr, I faced the enemy's fire to win a cross and a little glory besides, now I dress myself up like an actor in a farce to win a great social position and a few thousand francs a year. Once I had started on this sort of political chessboard, stung by the insolence of my superiors, I determined to occupy one of the foremost posts; I have reached it. But the happiest days of my life will always be those which, now and again, I manage to spend at Milan; here, it seems to me, there still survives the spirit of your Army of Italy."

The frankness, the disinvoltura with which this Minister of so dreaded a Prince spoke pricked the Contessa's curiosity; from his title she had expected to find a pedant filled with self-importance; what she saw was a man who was ashamed of the gravity of his position. Mosca had promised to let her have all the news from France that he could collect; this was a grave indiscretion at Milan, during the month that preceded Waterloo; the question for Italy at that time was to be or not to be; everyone at Milan was in a fever, a fever of hope or fear. Amid this universal disturbance, the Contessa started to make inquiries about a man who spoke thus lightly of so coveted a position, and one which, moreover, was his sole means of livelihood.

Certain curious information of an interesting oddity was reported to Signora Pietranera. "Conte Mosca della Rovere Sorezana," she was told, "is on the point of becoming Prime Minister and declared favourite of Ranuccio-Ernesto IV, the absolute sovereign of Parma and one of the wealthiest Princes in Europe to boot. The Conte would already have attained to this exalted position if he had cared to shew a more solemn face: they say that the Prince often lectures him on this failing.

"'What do my manners matter to Your Highness,' he answers boldly, 'so long as I conduct his affairs?'

"This favourite's bed of roses," her informant went on, "is not without its thorns. He has to please a Sovereign, a man of sense and intelligence, no doubt, but a man who, since his accession to an absolute throne, seems to have lost his head altogether and shews, for instance, suspicions worthy of an old woman.

- Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma, tr. C. K. Scott Moncrieff