He then opened a bundle in which about fifty pages were arranged in order, covered on both sides with his big handwriting and numbered at the front of each page. "See," he said, "copy from here to there: if you finish before I come back, you must wait for me; I have several corrections to make in certain passages, and I will make them as I dictate them to you." I sat down and set to work at my task. The work with which I was entrusted was concerned with an event which had recently made a great stir, and which could not fail to take up the attention of Paris. This was the claim made by Maria-Stella-Petronilla Chiappini, Baroness of Sternberg, to the rank and fortune of the Duc d'Orléans, which she contended belonged to her. Here is the fable upon which her pretension was founded. We give it from Maria-Stella's point of view, without, be it well understood, believing for a single instant in the justice of her claim. Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans, who was married in 1768, had, to the beginning of January 1772, only presented her husband, Louis-Philippe-Joseph d'Orléans, with a still-born daughter. The absence of male issue troubled the Duc d'Orléans greatly, as his fortune, derived chiefly from portions granted him as a younger son, would, in default of male issue, revert to the Crown. It was with this in his mind and in the hope that travel might perhaps lead to the Duchesse d'Orléans being again pregnant, that Louis-Philippe and his wife set out for Italy, in the early part of the year 1772, under the name of the Comte and Comtesse de Joinville. I repeat for the last time, that throughout this narrative it is not I who am speaking, but the claimant, Maria-Stella-Petronilla. Well, the august travellers had scarcely reached the top of the Apennines before symptoms of a fresh pregnancy declared themselves, which caused the Duchesse d'Orléans to stay at Modigliana. In the village of Modigliana there was a prison, and a gaoler to watch over the prison. The gaoler was called Chiappini. M. le Duc d'Orléans, faithful to his traditions of familiarity with the people, became on still more easy terms with the gaoler as the intimacy took place under cover of his incognito. There was, besides, a reason for the intimacy. Chiappini's wife was expecting her confinement just at the same time as Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans. A treaty was accordingly entered into between the illustrious travellers and the humble gaoler, to the effect that should Madame la Comtesse de Joinville by chance give birth to a girl, and the wife of Chiappini to a boy, the two mothers should exchange their two children. Fate ordained matters as the parents had foreseen: the gaoler's wife gave birth to a boy, the prince's wife gave birth to a girl; and the agreed exchange was made, the prince handing over a considerable sum to the gaoler as well.