“He thought most of the legend,” said Cropole.

“The proof of the importance in which he held the figures,” said Pittrino, “is that he desired they should be likenesses, and they are so.”

“Yes; but if they had not been so, who would have recognized them without the legend? At the present day even, when the memory of the Blaisois begins to be faint with regard to these two celebrated persons, who would recognize Catherine and Mary without the words ‘To the Medici’?”

“But the figures?” said Pittrino, in despair; for he felt that young Cropole was right. “I should not like to lose the fruit of my labor.”

“And I should not wish you to be thrown into prison, and myself into the oubliettes.”