While I was inspecting the card, and wondering what right the marquis had to the title of general, Severini came in, and informed me that the marquis had been made a Knight of the Order of St. Stanislas by the King of Poland, who had also given him the style of royal chamberlain.
"Is he a general in the Polish service as well?" I asked.
"I really don't know."
"I understand it all," I said to myself. "In Poland a chamberlain has the rank of adjutant-general, and the marquis calls himself general. But general what? The adjective without a substantive is a mere cheat."
I saw my opportunity, and wrote a comic dialogue, which I had printed the next day. I made a present of the work to a bookseller, and in three or four days he sold out the whole edition at a bajocco apiece.
CHAPTER XIX
Farinello and the Electress Dowager of Saxony—Madame Slopitz—Nina—The
Midwife—Madame Soavi—Abbe Bolini—Madame Viscioletta—The
Seamstress—The Sorry Pleasure of Revenge—Severini Goes to Naples—My
Departure—Marquis Mosca
Anyone who attacks a proud person in a comic vein is almost sure of success; the laugh is generally on his side.
I asked in my dialogue whether it was lawful for a provost-marshal to call himself simply marshal, and whether a lieutenant-colonel had a right to the title of colonel. I also asked whether the man who preferred titles of honour, for which he had paid in hard cash, to his ancient and legitimate rank, could pass for a sage.
Of course the marquis had to laugh at my dialogue, but he was called the general ever after. He had placed the royal arms of Poland over the gate of his palace, much to the amusement of Count Mischinski, the Polish ambassador to Berlin, who happened to be passing through Bologna at that time.