Montalent told him to assume the attitude of a man bowed down with grief.

More, he stuck two tears as big as spectacle lenses on his cheeks.

He finished his picture, forwarded it to Carthage, and had half a dozen bottles of champagne sent up.

Three months later he received from Father Cornemuse, the head of the French Missions in Tunis, a letter informing him that his painting of the _Death of Saint Louis_, having been submitted to the Cardinal-Archbishop, had been refused by His Eminence, because of the unseemly expression on the face of Philippe the Bold who was laughing as he watched the saintly King, his father, dying on a bed of straw.
Montalent could not make head or tail of it; he was furious, and wanted to take proceedings against the Cardinal-Archbishop.

His painting was returned to him; he unpacked it, gazed at it in gloomy silence, and suddenly shouted: 'It's true--Philippe the Bold appears to be splitting his sides with laughter.