Here were pilgrims of every condition, from the noble lady of Turin or Asti (for it was the favourite pilgrimage of the Sardinian court), attended by her physician and her cicisbeo, to the half-naked goatherd of Val Sesia or Salluzzo; the cheerful farmers of the Milanese, with their wives, in silver necklaces and hairpins, riding pillion on plump white asses; sick persons travelling in closed litters or carried on hand-stretchers; crippled beggars obtruding their deformities; confraternities of hooded penitents, Franciscans, Capuchins and Poor Clares in dusty companies; jugglers, pedlars, Egyptians and sellers of drugs and amulets.  From among these, as the canonesses’ litter jogged along, an odd figure advanced toward Odo, who had obtained leave to do the last mile of the journey on foot.  This was a plump abate in tattered ecclesiastical dress, his shoes white as a miller’s and the perspiration streaking his face as he laboured along in the dust.  He accosted Odo in a soft shrill voice, begging leave to walk beside the young cavaliere, whom he had more than once had the honour of seeing at Pianura; and, in reply to the boy’s surprised glance, added, with a swelling of the chest and an absurd gesture of self-introduction, “But perhaps the cavaliere is not too young to have heard of the illustrious Cantapresto, late primo soprano of the ducal theatre of Pianura?”

Odo being obliged to avow his ignorance, the fat creature mopped his brow and continued with a gasp—­“Ah, your excellency, what is fame?  From glory to obscurity is no farther than from one milestone to another!  Not eight years ago, cavaliere, I was followed through the streets of Pianura by a greater crowd than the Duke ever drew after him!  But what then?  The voice goes—­it lasts no longer than the bloom of a flower—­and with it goes everything:  fortune, credit, consideration, friends and parasites!  Not eight years ago, sir—­would you believe me?—­I was supping nightly in private with the Bishop, who had nearly quarrelled with his late Highness for carrying me off by force one evening to his casino; I was heaped with dignities and favours; all the poets in the town composed sonnets in my honour; the Marquess of Trescorre fought a duel about me with the Bishop’s nephew, Don Serafino; I attended his lordship to Rome; I spent the villeggiatura at his villa, where I sat at play with the highest nobles in the land; yet when my voice went, cavaliere, it was on my knees I had to beg of my heartless patron the paltry favour of the minor orders!” Tears were running down the abate’s cheeks, and he paused to wipe them with a corner of tattered bands.