At Naples, Collet's first act was to obtain 22,000 francs from the bankers by false pretences, and, being in funds, he threw off his monkish garb, assumed that of a high-born gentleman, and, filling up one of his passports in the name of the Marquis de Dada, started _viâ_ Capua for Rome. _En route_ he again changed his identity, having become possessed of the papers of one Tolosan, a sea captain, and native of Lyons, who had been wrecked on the Italian coast. Some say that Collet had picked up Tolosan's pocket-book, others that he had stolen it. In any case, he called himself by that name on arrival at Rome, and as a Lyonnais sought the protection of a venerable French priest also from Lyons, who was acquainted with the Tolosan family, and through whom he was presented to Cardinal Archbishop Fesch, the uncle of the Emperor Napoleon. He now became an inmate of the Cardinal's palace, and was introduced by his patron everywhere, even to the Pope. Under such good auspices he soon began to prey upon his new friends, before whom he put the many schemes that filled his inventive mind, and from most of whom he extracted considerable sums. He persuaded a rich merchant clothier to endorse a bill for 60,000 francs; he borrowed another sum of 30,000 francs from the Cardinal Archbishop's bankers; he bought jewellery on credit to the value of 60,000 francs from one tradesman and defrauded many others; even the Cardinal's personal servants were laid under contribution. A more daring theft was a number of blank appointments to the priesthood which he abstracted from the Cardinal's bureau, and with them a bull to create a bishop _in partibus_. Then he decamped from Rome. His thefts and frauds were soon discovered, and the papal police put upon his track. He had left Rome on an ecclesiastical mission, and in company with other priests, one of whom was informed of his real character and requested to secure him. But Collet, having some suspicion, forestalled him by making off before he could be arrested. The place to which he fled was Mondovi, where he set up as a young man of fashion, and was soon a centre of the pleasure-loving, with whom he spent his money freely. His next idea was to organise amateur theatricals, and he forthwith constituted himself the wardrobe-keeper of the company. A number of fine costumes were ordered, among them the robes of a bishop and other ecclesiastical garments, the uniforms of a French general officer and of French diplomatists, with all the accessories, ribbons, medals, decorations, feathers, and gold lace. On the night preceding the first dress rehearsal he again decamped, carrying off most of the "properties" and clothes.