city, climb up the walls and descend into the piazza. The first who
entered went round to open the gates and let the rest in. As soon as
they had recovered from their surprise at finding that the inhabitants
had all escaped, they began to commit sacrileges. Balestrazzo, Emperor
of Turgovia, occupied the principal church of Paris as a stable for his
horses. Rainello, a nephew of the traitor Gano di Magonza, wishing to do
a bravery, went into a church and cried with a loud voice:

"Take down that crucifix; it is only wood; if it had been a god I should
not have denied the faith. Take it away. There is only one God and
Mahomet is his prophet."

With this he leapt on the altar, drew his sword, and was about to hew the
crucifix into pieces when a thunderbolt struck him. As he was the first
to lay hands upon the sacred images, so he was the first to be struck.
But he recovered; he did not die of the thunderbolt; it was the will of
heaven that he should live to be killed by Guido Santo.

It was a pity that I had to go to Calatafimi and could not stay for all
this, but before I went I had the satisfaction of seeing Ettorina go mad.
At first she was hardly more than slightly unhinged, yet she was mad
enough to enter the enemy's camp by night. The sentinel had just been
awakened by the corporal, but she paid no more attention to them than
they to her. Nor did she shrink from making consecutive fifths, or
downright octaves, with Costanzo as she crossed the stage, going away to
fetch a quantity of wood to light a fire because it was a chilly evening;
but, as the buffo pointed out, she had a sufficient dramatic reason to
justify the licence. Presently, like the laden Sicilian cart, she
staggered back with her faggots and disappeared. In a few moments we saw
the fitful glare from the conflagration she had kindled dancing on the
combustible pavilion which took up all the back of the scene. Various
Turkish soldiers entered to investigate the cause of the unwonted light,
but they did not return to report, she killed them all, one after the
other; and this gave time which the buffo utilised by applying a match
from below, and, while the pavilion blazed and the audience applauded,
Ettorina in her burnished armour went as mad as Tilburina in her white
satin till the curtain fell.

CHAPTER VI
THE ESCAPE FROM PARIS

Although I had to miss a great deal that it would have been interesting
to see on the stage, I spent a c