Page:Moll Flanders (1906 edition).djvu/286

254 foreign ambassadors. In a word, they have an air of sharping and cozening, quarrelling and scolding, upon their general behaviour; and, when I was there, the footmen made such a broil between two great families in Rome, about which of their coaches (the ladies being in the coaches on either side) should give way to the other, that there was about thirty people wounded on both sides, five or six killed outside, and both the ladies frighted almost to death.

But I have no mind to write the history of my travels on this side of the world, at least not now; it would be too full of variety.

I must not, however, omit that the prince continued in all this journey the most kind, obliging person to me in the world, and so constant that, though we were in a country where it is well known all manner of liberties are taken, I am yet well assured he neither took the liberty he knew he might have, or so much as desired it.

I have often thought of this noble person on that account. Had he been but half so true, so faithful and constant to the best lady in the world—I mean his princess—how glorious a virtue had it been in him! And how free had he been from those just reflections which touched him in her behalf when it was too late!

We had some very agreeable conversations upon this subject, and once he told me, with a kind of more than ordinary concern upon his thoughts, that he was greatly beholden to me for taking this hazardous and difficult journey, for that I had kept him honest. I looked up in his face, and coloured as red as fire. 'Well, well', says he, 'do not let that surprise you, I do say you have kept me honest.' 'My lord', said I, '’tis not for me to explain your words, but I wish I could turn them my own way. I hope', says I, 'and believe, we are both as honest as we can be in our circumstances.' 'Ay, ay', says he; 'and honester than I doubt I should have been if you had not been with me. I cannot say but, if you had not been here, I should have wandered among the gay world here, in Naples, and in Venice too, for 'tis not such a crime here as 'tis in other places. But I protest', says he, 'I have not touched a woman in Italy but yourself; and, more than that, I have not so much as had any desire to it. So that, I say, you have kept me honest.'

I was silent, and was glad that he interrupted me, or kept me from speaking, with kissing me, for really I knew not what to say. I was once going to say that if his lady, the princess, had been with him, she would doubtless have had the same influence upon his virtue, with infinitely more advantage to him; but I considered this might give him offence; and, besides, such things might have been dangerous to the circumstance I stood in, so it passed off. But I must confess I saw that he was quite another man as to women than I understood he had always been before, and it was a particular satisfaction to me that I was thereby convinced that what he said was true, and that he was, as I may say, all my own.

I was with child again in this journey, and lay in at Venice, but was not so happy as before. I brought him another son, and a very fine boy it was, but it lived not above two months; nor, after the first touches of affection (which are usual, I believe, to all mothers) were over, was I sorry the child did not live, the necessary difficulties attending it in our travelling being considered.

After these several perambulations, my lord told me his business began to close, and we would think of returning to France, which I was very