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The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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The Vicomte De Bragelonne 15 at Prostate Health
Blois,she once sent for some.It was precisely on the day she had escaped by the famouswindow. The dish of macaroni was left upon the table, onlyjust tasted by the royal mouth.This double favor, of a strangulation and a macaroni,conferred upon the triangular house, gave poor Cropoli afancy to grace his hostelry with a pompous title. But hisquality of an Italian was no recommendation in these times,and his small, well-concealed fortune forbade attracting toomuch attention.When he found himself about to die, which happened in 1643,just after the death of Louis XIII., he called to him hisson, a young cook of great promise, and with tears in hiseyes, he recommended him to preserve carefully the secret ofthe macaroni, to Frenchify his name, and at length, when thepolitical horizon should be cleared from the clouds whichobscured it -- this was practiced then as in our day, toorder of the nearest smith a handsome sign, upon which afamous painter, whom he named, should design two queensportraits, with these words as a legend: "To The Medici."The worthy Cropoli, after these recommendations, had onlysufficient time to point out to his young successor achimney, under the slab of which he had hidden a thousandten-franc pieces, and then expired.Cropoli the younger, like a man of good heart, supported theloss with resignation, and the gain without insolence. Hebegan by accustoming the public to sound the final i of hisname so little, that by the aid of general complaisance, hewas soon called nothing but M. Cropole, which is quite aFrench name. He then married, having had in his eye a littleFrench girl, from whose parents he extorted a reasonabledowry by showing them what there was beneath the slab of thechimney.These two points accomplished, he went in search of thepainter who was to paint the sign; and he was soon found. Hewas an old Italian, a rival of the Raphaels and the Caracci,but an unfortunate rival. He said he was of the Venetianschool, doubtless from his fondness for color. His works, ofwhich he had never sold one, attracted the eye at a distanceof a hundred paces; but they so formidably displeased thecitizens, that he had finished by painting no more.He boasted of having painted a bath-room for Madame laMarechale dAncre, and mourned over this chamber having beenburnt at the time of the marechals disaster.Cropoli, in his character of a compatriot, was indulgenttowards Pittrino, which was the name of the artist. Perhapshe had seen the famous pictures of the bath-room. Be this asit may, he held in such esteem, we may say in suchfriendship, the famous Pittrino, that he took him in his ownhouse.Pittrino, grateful, and fed with macaroni, set aboutpropagating the reputation of this national dish, and fromthe time of its founder, he had rendered, with hisindefatigable tongue, signal services to the house ofCropoli.As he grew old he attached himself to the son as he had doneto the father, and by degrees became a kind of overlooker ofa house in which his remarkable integrity, his acknowledgedsobriety, and a thousand other virtues useless to enumerate,gave him an eternal place by the fireside, with a right ofinspection over the domestics. Besides this, it was he whotasted the macaroni, to maintain the pure flavor of theancient tradition; and it must be allowed that he neverpermitted a grain of pepper too much, or an atom of parmesantoo little. His joy was at its height on that day whencalled upon to share the secret of Cropoli the younger, andto paint the famous sign.He was seen at once rummaging with ardor in an old box, inwhich he found some brushes, a little gnawed by the rats,but still passable; some colors in bladders almost dried up;some linseed-oil in a bottle, and a palette which hadformerly belonged to Bronzino, that dieu de la pittoure, asthe ultramontane artist, in his ever young enthusiasm,always called him.Pittrino was puffed up with all the joy of a rehabilitation.He did as Raphael had done -- he changed his style, andpainted, in the fashion of the Albanian, two goddessesrather than two queens. These illustrious ladies appeared solovely on the sign, -- they presented to the astonished eyessuch an assemblage of lilies and roses, the enchantingresult of the change of style in Pittrino -- they assumedthe
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