mayor returned to the village, carrying with him the purchases; and the architect departed to engage masons and carpenters.
No sooner was Collet left than he took post-horses and departed for Strasburg. There he vanished. His next appearance was in Italy, shifting, his quarters and changing his costume repeatedly. At Savona, on the Riviera, he persuaded a banker to let him have 10,000 francs. Next he appeared at Nice, in a shovel hat, a purple cassock, and wearing a gold pectoral cross, as Dominic Pasqualini, Bishop of Manfredonia. He called on the Bishop of Nice, showed him the bull of his institution, forged by himself, and so completely deceived him, that the bishop offered him the most cordial welcome, showed him hospitality, took him into the seminary and asked him to examine the seminarists. Collet saw the risk he ran, and evaded it shrewdly. "Monseignore," said he, "I can see by the look of their faces that they are a set of asses. I do not wish to hurt their feelings by exposing their ignorance—I being a stranger."
"Well, then," said the Bishop of Nice, "if you will not examine them, you shall ordain them; there are thirty-three to receive deacon's and sub-deacon's orders next Sunday."
Collet could not refuse. Accordingly, vested in full pontificals, in the Cathedral of Nice, he committed this sacrilegious act.
After this, not seeing his way to making much money at Nice, he departed, changed his costume, and appeared at Fréjus as plenipotentiary of the Emperor, an inspector-general, charged with seeing to the equipment of the army of Catalonia. He presented his credentials,
