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LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.
tion, for the very next day the King, having beenmade acquainted with the case of Rambaud by Cataneohimself, as I have already stated, heard some hints ofthe threats held out by the sufferer against the object ofhis anger. He sent for both Rambaud and myself, andafter hearing all the particulars I have just sketched,ordered the General and the officers into arrest, but gave toCarabelli the benefit of his apologetical explanation to meon the previous night, which I recounted to his Majestywith much pleasure and zeal for my quondam enemy.
Thus ended the affair of Peter Rambaud and MadamCataneo. The former is now a happy husband and father,enjoying at Marseilles a handsome independence, and atthe head of the General Steam Navigation Company, longsince in prosperous operation in that first sea-port of France .For several years Cataneo and his rib resided at Paris ,where I saw them in 1821. They are now resicfing on theirproperty in Corsica, where tlieir present age may, perhaps,allow them to read, with feelings of hilarity, this accountof their misadventure, if ever it should reach them. OfCarabelli I shall have occasion to speak during the occur-rences of 1815. Another party—myself—is now obliged tocut short his narrative, for want of means to buy paper tocontinue it. So strange is truth! What is fiction to this?Come forth ye novelists, so soon as ye shall have read thisbook, if ever it be finished , and your appetites shallhave allowed ye to get through with mere matter of fact—and try if ye can string together so many incredible instancesof persevering useful labours going unrewarded to the lastdying gasp of the labourer—of so many acts of injustice andoppression being suffered in a state of civilised society,as you shall anon see the continuation of towards thiswretched writer.