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#25 in our series by Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

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Title: Russia and Poland, Casanova, v25

Author: Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

Release Date: December, 2001 [Etext #2975]
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THE MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA DE SEINGALT

THE RARE UNABRIDGED LONDON EDITION OF 1894 TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR
MACHEN TO WHICH HAS BEEN ADDED THE CHAPTERS DISCOVERED BY ARTHUR
SYMONS.



MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA de SEINGALT 1725-1798
IN LONDON AND MOSCOW, Volume 5e--RUSSIA AND POLAND




RUSSIA AND POLAND




CHAPTER XIX

My Stay at Riga--Campioni St. Heleine--D'Asagon--Arrival of the
Empress--I Leave Riga and Go to St.  Petersburg--I See Society
--I Buy Zaira


Prince Charles de Biron, the younger son of the Duke of Courland,
Major-General in the Russian service, Knight of the Order of St.
Alexander Newski, gave me a distinguished reception after reading his
father's letter.  He was thirty-six years of age, pleasant-looking
without being handsome, and polite and well-mannered, and he spoke
French extremely well.  In a few sentences he let me know what he
could do for me if I intended to spend some time at Riga.  His table,
his friends, his pleasures, his horses, his advice, and his purse,
all these were at my service, and he offered them with the frankness
of the soldier and the geniality of the prince.

"I cannot offer you a lodging," he said, "because I have hardly
enough room for myself, but I will see that you get a comfortable
apartment somewhere."

The apartment was soon found, and I was taken to it by one of the
prince's aides-de-camp.  I was scarcely established when the prince
came to see me, and made me dine with him just as I was.  It was an
unceremonious dinner, and I was pleased to meet Campioni, of whom I
have spoken several times in these Memoirs.  He was a dancer, but
very superior to his fellows, and fit for the best company polite,
witty, intelligent, and a libertine in a gentlemanly way.  He was
devoid of prejudices, and fond of women, good cheer, and heavy play,
and knew how to keep an even mind both in good and evil fortune.  We
were mutually pleased to see each other again.

Another guest, a certain Baron de St. Heleine from Savoy, had a
pretty but very insignificant wife.  The baron, a fat man, was a
gamester, a gourmand, and a lover of wine; add that he was a past
master in the art of getting into debt and lulling his creditors into
a state of false security, and you have all his capacities, for in
all other respects he was a fool in the fullest sense of the word.
An aide-decamp and the prince's mistress also dined with us.  This
mistress, who was pale, thin, and dreamy-looking, but also pretty,
might be twenty years old.  She hardly ate anything, saying that she
was ill and did not like anything on the table.  Discontent shewed
itself on her every feature.  The prince endeavoured, but all in
vain, to make her eat and drink, she refused everything disdainfully.
The prince laughed good-humouredly at her in such a manner as not to
wound her feelings.

We spent two hours pleasantly enough at table, and after coffee had
been served, the prince, who had business, shook me by the hand and
left me with Campioni, telling me always to regard his table as my
last resource.

This old friend and fellow-countryman took me to his house to
introduce me to his wife and family.  I did not know that he had
married a second time.  I found the so-called wife to be an
Englishwoman, thin, but full of intelligence.  She had a daughter of
eleven, who might easily have been taken for fifteen; she, too, was
marvellously intelligent, and danced, sang, and played on the piano
and gave such glances that shewed that nature had been swifter than
her years.  She made a conquest of me, and her father congratulated
me to my delight, but her mother offended her dreadfully by calling
her baby.

I went for a walk with Campioni, who gave me a good deal of
information, beginning with himself.

"I have lived for ten years," he said, "with that woman.  Betty, whom
you admired so much, is not my daughter, the others are my children
by my Englishwoman.  I have left St. Petersburg for two years, and I
live here well enough, and have pupils who do me credit.  I play with
the prince, sometimes winning and sometimes losing, but I never win
enough to enable me to satisfy a wretched creditor I left at St.
Petersburg, who persecutes me on account of a bill of exchange.  He
may put me in prison any day, and I am always expecting him to do
so."

"Is the bill for a large sum?"

"Five hundred roubles."

"That is only two thousand francs."

"Yes, but unfortunately I have not got it."

"You ought to annul the debt by paying small sums on account."

"The rascal won't let me."

"Then what do you propose doing?"

"Win a heavy sum, if I can, and escape into Poland.

"The Baron de St. Heleine will run away, too if he can, for he only
lives on credit.  The prince is very useful to us, as we are able to
play at his house; but if we get into difficulty he could not
extricate us, as he is heavily in debt himself.  He always loses at
play.  His mistress is expensive, and gives him a great deal of
trouble by her ill-humour."

"Why is she so sour?"

"She wants him to keep his word, for he promised to get her married
at the end of two years; and on the strength of this promise she let
him give her two children.  The two years have passed by and the
children are there, and she will no longer allow him to have anything
to do with her for fear of having a third child."

"Can't the prince find her a husband?"

"He did find her a lieutenant, but she won't hear of anybody under
the rank of major."

The prince gave a state dinner to General Woyakoff (for whom I had a
letter), Baroness Korf, Madame Ittinoff, and to a young lady who was
going to marry Baron Budberg, whom I had known at Florence, Turin,
and Augsburg, and whom I may possibly have forgotten to mention.

All these friends made me spend three weeks very pleasantly, and I
was especially pleased with old General Woyakoff.  This worthy man
had been at Venice fifty years before, when the Russians were still
called Muscovites, and the founder of St. Petersburg was still alive.
He had grown old like an oak, without changing his horizons.  He
thought the world was just the same as it had been when he was young,
and was eloquent in his praise of the Venetian Government, imagining
it to be still the same as he had left it.

At Riga an English merchant named Collins told me that the so-called
Baron de Stenau, who had given me the forged bill of exchange, had
been hanged in Portugal.  This "baron" was a poor clerk, and the son
of a small tradesman, and had left his desk in search of adventure,
and thus he had ended.  May God have mercy upon his soul!

One evening a Russian, on his way from Poland, where he had been
executing some commission for the Russian Court, called on the
prince, played, and lost twenty thousand roubles on his word of
honour.  Campioni was the dealer.  The Russian gave bills of exchange
in payment of his debts; but as soon as he got to St.  Petersburg he
dishonoured his own bills, and declared them worthless, not caring
for his honour or good faith.  The result of this piece of knavery
was not only that his creditors were defrauded, but gaming was
henceforth strictly forbidden in the officers' quarters.

This Russian was the same that betrayed the secrets of Elizabeth
Petrovna, when she was at war with Prussia.  He communicated to
Peter, the empress's nephew and heir-presumptive, all the orders she
sent to her generals, and Peter in his turn passed on the information
to the Prussian king whom he worshipped.

On the death of Elizabeth, Peter put this traitor at the head of the
department for commerce, and the fellow actually made known, with the
Czar's sanction, the service for which he had received such a reward,
and thus, instead of looking upon his conduct as disgraceful, he
gloried over it.  Peter could not have been aware of the fact that,
though it is sometimes necessary to reward treachery, the traitor
himself is always abhorred and despised.

I have remarked that it was Campioni who dealt, but he dealt for the
prince who held the bank.  I had certain claims, but as I remarked
that I expected nothing and would gladly sell my expectations for a
hundred roubles, the prince took me at my word and gave me the amount
immediately.  Thus I was the only person who made any money by our
night's play.

Catherine II, wishing to shew herself to her new subjects, over whom
she was in reality supreme, though she had put the ghost of a king in
the person of Stanislas Poniatowski, her former favourite, on the
throne of Poland, came to Riga, and it was then I saw this great
sovereign for the first time.  I was a witness of the kindness and
affability with which she treated the Livonian nobility, and of the
way in which she kissed the young ladies, who had come to kiss her
hand, upon the mouth.  She was surrounded by the Orloffs and by other
nobles who had assisted in placing her on the throne.  For the
comfort and pleasure of her loyal subjects the empress graciously
expressed her intention of holding a bank at faro of ten thousand
roubles.

Instantly the table and the cards were brought forward, and the piles
of gold placed in order.  She took the cards, pretended to shuffle
them, and gave them to the first comer to cut.  She had the pleasure
of seeing her bank broken at the first deal, and indeed this result
was to be expected, as anybody not an absolute idiot could see how
the cards were going.  The next day the empress set out for Mitau,
where triumphal arches were erected in her honour.  They were made of
wood, as stone is scarce in Poland, and indeed there would not have
been time to build stone arches.

The day after her arrival great alarm prevailed, for news came that a
revolution was ready to burst out at St. Petersburg, and some even
said that it had begun.  The rebels wished to have forth from his
prison the hapless Ivan Ivanovitz, who had been proclaimed emperor in
his cradle, and dethroned by Elizabeth Petrovna.  Two officers to
whom the guardianship of the prince had been confided had killed the
poor innocent monarch when they saw that they would be overpowered.

The assassination of the innocent prince created such a sensation
that the wary Panin, fearing for the results, sent courier after
courier to the empress urging her to return to St. Petersburg and
shew herself to the people.

Catherine was thus obliged to leave Mitau twenty-four hours after she
had entered it, and after hastening back to the capital she arrived
only to find that the excitement had entirely subsided.  For politic
reasons the assassins of the wretched Ivan were rewarded, and the
bold man who had endeavoured to rise by her fall was beheaded.

The report ran that Catherine had concerted the whole affair with the
assassins, but this was speedily set down as a calumny.  The czarina
was strong-minded, but neither cruel nor perfidious.  When I saw her
at Riga she was thirty-five, and had reigned two years.  She was not
precisely handsome, but nevertheless her appearance was pleasing, her
expression kindly, and there was about her an air of calm and
tranquillity which never left her.

At about the same time a friend of Baron de St. Heleine arrived from
St. Petersburg on his way to Warsaw.  His name was Marquis Dragon,
but he called himself d'Aragon.  He came from Naples, was a great
gamester, a skilled swordsman, and was always ready to extract
himself from a difficulty by a duel.  He had left St. Petersburg
because the Orloffs had persuaded the empress to prohibit games of
chance.  It was thought strange that the prohibition should come from
the Orloffs, as gaming had been their principal means of gaining a
livelihood before they entered on the more dangerous and certainly
not more honourable profession of conspiracy.  However, this measure
was really a sensible one.  Having been gamesters themselves they
knew that gamesters are mostly knaves, and always ready to enter into
any intrigue or conspiracy provided it assures them some small gain;
there could not have been better judges of gaming and its
consequences than they were.

But though a gamester may be a rogue he may still have a good heart,
and it is only just to say that this was the case with the Orloffs.
Alexis gained the slash which adorns his face in a tavern, and the
man who gave the blow had just lost to him a large sum of money, and
considered his opponent's success to be rather the result of
dexterity than fortune.  When Alexis became rich and powerful,
instead of revenging himself, he hastened to make his enemy's
fortune.  This was nobly done.

Dragon, whose first principle was always to turn up the best card,
and whose second principle was never to shirk a duel, had gone to St.
Petersburg in 1759 with the Baron de St. Heleine.  Elizabeth was
still on the throne, but Peter, Duke of Holstein, the heir-
presumptive, had already begun to loom large on the horizon.  Dragon
used to frequent the fencing school where the prince was a frequent
visitor, and there encountered all comers successfully.  The duke got
angry, and one day he took up a foil and defied the Neapolitan
marquis to a combat.  Dragon accepted and was thoroughly beaten,
while the duke went off in triumph, for he might say from henceforth
that he was the best fencer in St. Petersburg.

When the prince had gone, Dragon could not withstand the temptation
of saying that he had only let himself be beaten for fear of
offending his antagonist; and this boast soon got to the grand-duke's
ears.  The great man was terribly enraged, and swore he would have
him banished from St. Petersburg if he did not use all his skill, and
at the same time he sent an order to Dragon to be at the fencing
school the next day.

The impatient duke was the first to arrive, and d'Aragon was not long
in coming.  The prince began reproaching him for what he had said the
day before, but the Neapolitan, far from denying the fact, expressed
himself that he had felt himself obliged to shew his respect for his
prince by letting him rap him about for upwards of two hours.

"Very good," said the duke, "but now it is your turn; and if you
don't do your best I will drive you from St.  Petersburg."

"My lord, your highness shall be obeyed.  I shall not allow you to
touch me once, but I hope you will deign to take me under your
protection."

The two champions passed the whole morning with the foils, and the
duke was hit a hundred times without being able to touch his
antagonist.  At last, convinced of Dragon's superiority, he threw
down his foil and shook him by the hand, and made him his fencer-in-
ordinary, with the rank of major in his regiment of Holsteiners.

Shortly after, D'Aragon having won the good graces of the duke
obtained leave to hold a bank at faro in his court, and in three or
four years he amassed a fortune of a hundred thousand roubles, which
he took with him to the Court of King Stanislas, where games of all
sorts were allowed.  When he passed through Riga, St. Heleine
introduced him to Prince Charles, who begged him to call on him the
next day, and to shew his skill with the foils against himself and
some of his friends.  I had the honour to be of the number; and
thoroughly well he beat us, for his skill was that of a demon.  I was
vain enough to become angry at being hit at every pass, and told him
that I should not be afraid to meet him at a game of sharps.  He was
calmer, and replied by taking my hand, and saying,--

"With the naked sword I fence in quite another style, and you are
quite right not to fear anyone, for you fence very well."

D'Aragon set out for Warsaw the next day, but he unfortunately found
the place occupied by more cunning Greeks than himself.  In six
months they had relieved him of his hundred thousand roubles, but
such is the lot of gamesters; no craft can be more wretched than
theirs.

A week before I left Riga (where I stayed two months) Campioni fled
by favour of the good Prince Charles, and in a few days the Baron de
St. Heleine followed him without taking leave of a noble army of
creditors.  He only wrote a letter to the Englishman Collins, to whom
he owed a thousand crowns, telling him that like an honest man he had
left his debts where he had contracted them.  We shall hear more of
these three persons in the course of two years.

Campioni left me his travelling carriage, which obliged me to use six
horses on my journey to St. Petersburg.  I was sorry to leave Betty,
and I kept up an epistolary correspondence with her mother throughout
the whole of my stay at St. Petersburg.

I left Riga with the thermometer indicating fifteen degrees of frost,
but though I travelled day and night, not leaving the carriage for
the sixty hours for which my journey lasted, I did not feel the cold
in the least.  I had taken care to pay all the stages in advance, and
Marshal Braun, Governor of Livonia, had given me the proper passport.
On the box seat was a French servant who had begged me to allow him
to wait on me for the journey in return for a seat beside the
coachman.  He kept his word and served me well, and though he was but
ill clad he bore the horrible cold for two days and three nights
without appearing to feel it.  It is only a Frenchman who can bear
such trials; a Russian in similar attire would have been frozen to
death in twenty-four hours, despite plentiful doses of corn brandy.
I lost sight of this individual when I arrived at St.  Petersburg,
but I met him again three months after, richly dressed, and occupying
a seat beside mine at the table of M. de Czernitscheff.  He was the
uchitel of the young count, who sat beside him.  But I shall have
occasion to speak more at length of the office of uchitel, or tutor,
in Russia.

As for Lambert, who was beside me in the carriage, he did nothing but
eat, drink, and sleep the whole way; seldom speaking, for he
stammered, and could only talk about mathematical problems, on which
I was not always in the humour to converse.  He was never amusing,
never had any sensible observation to make on the varied scenes
through which we passed; in short, he was a fool, and wearisome to
all save himself.

I was only stopped once, and that was at Nawa, where the authorities
demanded a passport, which I did not possess.  I told the governor
that as I was a Venetian, and only travelled for pleasure, I did not
conceive a passport would be necessary, my Republic not being at war
with any other power, and Russia having no embassy at Venice.

"Nevertheless," I added, "if your excellency wills it I will turn
back; but I shall complain to Marshal Braun, who gave me the passport
for posting, knowing that I had not the political passport."

After rubbing his forehead for a minute, the governor gave me a pass,
which I still possess, and which brought me into St.  Petersburg,
without my having to allow the custom-house officers to inspect my
trunks.

Between Koporie and St. Petersburg there is only a wretched hut for
the accommodation of travellers.  The country is a wilderness, and
the inhabitants do not even speak Russian.  The district is called
Ingria, and I believe the jargon spoken has no affinity with any
other language.  The principal occupation of the peasants is robbery,
and the traveller does well not to leave any of his effects alone for
a moment.

I got to St.  Petersburg just as the first rays of the sun began to
gild the horizon.  It was in the winter solstice, and the sun rose at
the extremity of an immense plain at twenty-four minutes past nine,
so I am able to state that the longest night in Russia consists of
eighteen hours and three quarters.

I got down in a fine street called the Millione.  I found a couple of
empty rooms, which the people of the house furnished with two beds,
four chairs, and two small tables, and rented to me very cheaply.
Seeing the enormous stoves, I concluded they must consume a vast
amount of wood, but I was mistaken.  Russia is the land of stoves as
Venice is that of cisterns.  I have inspected the interior of these
stoves in summer-time as minutely as if I wished to find out the
secret of making them; they are twelve feet high by six broad, and
are capable of warming a vast room.  They are only refuelled once in
twenty-four hours, for as soon as the wood is reduced to the state of
charcoal a valve is shut in the upper part of the stove.

It is only in the houses of noblemen that the stoves are refuelled
twice a day, because servants are strictly forbidden to close the
valve, and for a very good reason.

If a gentleman chance to come home and order his servants to warm his
room before he goes to bed, and if the servant is careless enough to
close the valve before the wood is reduced to charcoal, then the
master sleeps his last sleep, being suffocated in three or four
hours.  When the door is opened in the morning he is found dead, and
the poor devil of a servant is immediately hanged, whatever he may
say.  This sounds severe, and even cruel; but it is a necessary
regulation, or else a servant would be able to get rid of his master
on the smallest provocation.

After I had made an agreement for my board and lodging, both of which
were very cheap (now St. Petersburg, is as dear as London), I brought
some pieces of furniture which were necessaries for me, but which
were not as yet much in use in Russia, such as a commode, a bureau, &c.

German is the language principally spoken in St. Petersburg, and I
did not speak German much better then than I do now, so I had a good
deal of difficulty in making myself understood, and usually excited
my auditors to laughter.

After dinner my landlord told me that the Court was giving a masked
ball to five thousand persons to last sixty hours.  He gave me a
ticket, and told me I only needed to shew it at the entrance of the
imperial palace.

I decided to use the ticket, for I felt that I should like to be
present at so numerous an assembly, and as I had my domino still by
me a mask was all I wanted.  I went to the palace in a sedan-chair,
and found an immense crowd assembled, and dancing going on in several
halls in each of which an orchestra was stationed.  There were long
counters loaded with eatables and drinkables at which those who were
hungry or thirsty ate or drank as much as they liked.  Gaiety and
freedom reigned everywhere, and the light of a thousand wax candles
illuminated the hall.  Everything was wonderful, and all the more so
from its contrast with the cold and darkness that were without.  All
at once I heard a masquer beside me say to another,--

"There's the czarina."

We soon saw Gregory Orloff, for his orders were to follow the empress
at a distance.

I followed the masquer, and I was soon persuaded that it was really
the empress, for everybody was repeating it, though no one openly
recognized her.  Those who really did not know her jostled her in the
crowd, and I imagined that she would be delighted at being treated
thus, as it was a proof of the success of her disguise.  Several
times I saw her speaking in Russian to one masquer and another.  No
doubt she exposed her vanity to some rude shocks, but she had also
the inestimable advantage of hearing truths which her courtiers would
certainly not tell her.  The masquer who was pronounced to be Orloff
followed her everywhere, and did not let her out of his sight for a
moment.  He could not be mistaken, as he was an exceptionally tall
man and had a peculiar carriage of the head.

I arrested my progress in a hall where the French square dance was
being performed, and suddenly there appeared a masquer disguised in
the Venetian style.  The costume was so complete that I at once set
him down as a fellow-countryman, for very few strangers can imitate
us so as to escape detection.  As it happened, he came and stood next
to me.

"One would think you were a Venetian," I said to him in French.

"So I am."

"Like myself."

"I am not jesting."

"No more am I."

"Then let us speak in Venetian."

"Do you begin, and I will reply."

We began our conversation, but when he came to the word Sabato,
Saturday, which is a Sabo in Venetian, I discovered that he was a
real Venetian, but not from Venice itself.  He said I was right, and
that he judged from my accent that I came from Venice.

"Quite so," said I.

"I thought Bernadi was the only Venetian besides myself in St.
Petersburg."

"You see you are mistaken."

"My name is Count Volpati di Treviso."

"Give me your address, and I will come and tell you who I am, for I
cannot do so here."

"Here it is."

After leaving the count I continued my progress through this
wonderful hall, and two or three hours after I was attracted by the
voice of a female masquer speaking Parisian French in a high
falsetto, such as is common at an opera ball.

I did not recognize the voice but I knew the style, and felt quite
certain that the masquer must be one of my old friends, for she spoke
with the intonations and phraseology which I had rendered popular in
my chief places of resort at Paris.

I was curious to see who it could be, and not wishing to speak before
I knew her, I had the patience to wait till she lifted her mask, and
this occurred at the end of an hour.  What was my surprise to see
Madame Baret, the stocking-seller of the Rue St. Honor& My love awoke
from its long sleep, and coming up to her I said, in a falsetto
voice,--

"I am your friend of the 'Hotel d'Elbeuf.'"

She was puzzled, and looked the picture of bewilderment.  I whispered
in her ear, "Gilbert Baret, Rue des Prouveres," and certain other
facts which could only be known to herself and a fortunate lover.

She saw I knew her inmost secrets, and drawing me away she begged me
to tell her who I was.

"I was your lover, and a fortunate one, too," I replied; "but before
I tell you my name, with whom are you, and how are you?"

"Very well; but pray do not divulge what I tell you.  I left Paris
with M. d'Anglade, counsellor in the Court of Rouen.  I lived happily
enough for some time with him, and then left him to go with a
theatrical manager, who brought me here as an actress under the name
of de l'Anglade, and now I am kept by Count Rzewuski, the Polish
ambassador.  And now tell me who you are?"

Feeling sure of enjoying her again, I lifted my mask.  She gave a cry
of joy, and exclaimed,--

"My good angel has brought you to St.  Petersburg."

"How do you mean?"

"Rzewuski is obliged to go back to Poland, and now I count on you to
get me out of the country, for I can no longer continue in a station
for which I was not intended, since I can neither sing nor act."

She gave me her address, and I left her delighted with my discovery.
After having passed half an hour at the counter, eating and drinking
of the best, I returned to the crowd and saw my fair stocking-seller
talking to Count Volpati.  He had seen her with me, and hastened to
enquire my name of her.  However, she was faithful to our mutual
promise, and told him I was her husband, though the Venetian did not
seem to give the least credence to this piece of information.

At last I was tired and left the ball, and went to bed intending to
go to mass in the morning.  I slept for some time and woke, but as it
was still dark I turned on the other side and went to sleep again.
At last I awoke again, and seeing the daylight stealing through my
double windows, I sent for a hairdresser, telling my man to make
haste as I wanted to hear mass on the first Sunday after my arrival
in St. Petersburg.

"But sir," said he, "the first Sunday was yesterday; we are at Monday
now."

"What! Monday?"

"Yes, sir."

I had spent twenty-seven hours in bed, and after laughing at the
mishap I felt as if I could easily believe it, for my hunger was like
that of a cannibal.

This is the only day which I really lost in my life; but I do not
weep like the Roman emperor, I laugh.  But this is not the only
difference between Titus and Casanova.

I called on Demetrio Papanelopulo, the Greek merchant, who was to pay
me a hundred roubles a month.  I was also commended to him by M. da
Loglio, and I had an excellent reception.  He begged me to come and
dine with him every day, paid me the roubles for the month due, and
assured me that he had honoured my bill drawn at Mitau.  He also
found me a reliable servant, and a carriage at eighteen roubles, or
six ducats per month.  Such cheapness has, alas! departed for ever.

The next day, as I was dining with the worthy Greek and young
Bernardi, who was afterwards poisoned, Count Volpati came in with the
dessert, and told us how he had met a Venetian at the ball who had
promised to come and see him.

"The Venetian would have kept his promise," said I, "if he had not
had a long sleep of twenty-seven hours.  I am the Venetian, and am
delighted to continue our acquaintance."

The count was about to leave, and his departure had already been
announced in the St. Petersburg Gazette.  The Russian custom is not
to give a traveller his passports till a fortnight has elapsed after
the appearance of his name in the paper.  This regulation is for the
advantage of tradesmen, while it makes foreigners think twice before
they contract any debts.

The next day I took a letter of introduction to M. Pietro Ivanovitch
Melissino, colonel and afterwards general of artillery.  The letter
was written by Madame da Loglio, who was very intimate with
Melissino.  I was most politely welcomed, and after presenting me to
his pleasant wife, he asked me once for all to sup with him every
night.  The house was managed in the French style, and both play and
supper were conducted without any ceremony.  I met there Melissino's
elder brother, the procurator of the Holy Synod and husband of the
Princess Dolgorouki.  Faro went on, and the company was composed of
trustworthy persons who neither boasted of their gains nor bewailed
their losses to anyone, and so there was no fear of the Government
discovering this infrigement of the law against gaming.  The bank was
held by Baron Lefort, son of the celebrated admiral of Peter the
Great.  Lefort was an example of the inconstancy of fortune; he was
then in disgrace on account of a lottery which he had held at Moscow
to celebrate the coronation of the empress, who had furnished him
with the necessary funds.  The lottery had been broken and the fact
was attributed to the baron's supposed dishonesty.

I played for small stakes and won a few roubles.  I made friends with
Baron Lefort at supper, and he afterwards told me of the vicissitudes
he had experienced.

As I was praising the noble calmness with which a certain prince had
lost a thousand roubles to him, he laughed and said that the fine
gamester I had mentioned played upon credit but never paid.

"How about his honour?"

"It is not affected by the non-payment of gaming debts.  It is an
understood thing in Russia that one who plays on credit and loses may
pay or not pay as he wishes, and the winner only makes himself
ridiculous by reminding the loser of his debt."

"Then the holder of the bank has the right to refuse to accept bets
which are not backed by ready money."

"Certainly; and nobody has a right to be offended with him for doing
so.  Gaming is in a very bad state in Russia.  I know young men of
the highest rank whose chief boast is that they know how to conquer
fortune; that is, to cheat.  One of the Matuschkins goes so far as to
challenge all foreign cheats to master him.  He has just received
permission to travel for three years, and it is an open secret that
he wishes to travel that he may exercise his skill.  He intends
returning to Russia laden with the spoils of the dupes he has made."

A young officer of the guards named Zinowieff, a relation of the
Orloffs, whom I had met at Melissino's, introduced me to Macartney,
the English ambassador, a young man of parts and fond of pleasure.
He had fallen in love with a young lady of the Chitroff family, and
maid of honour to the empress, and finding his affection reciprocated
a baby was the result.  The empress disapproved strongly of this
piece of English freedom, and had the ambassador recalled, though she
forgave her maid of honour.  This forgiveness was attributed to the
young lady's skill in dancing.  I knew the brother of this lady, a
fine and intelligent young officer.  I had the good fortune to be
admitted to the Court, and there I had the pleasure of seeing Mdlle.
Chitroff dancing, and also Mdlle. Sievers, now Princesss, whom I saw
again at Dresden four years ago with her daughter, an extremely
genteel young princess.  I was enchanted with Mdlle.  Sievers, and
felt quite in love with her; but as we were never introduced I had no
opportunity of declaring my passion.  Putini, the castrato, was high
in her favour, as indeed he deserved to be, both for his talents and
the beauties of his person.

The worthy Papanelopulo introduced me to Alsuwieff, one of the
ministers, a man of wit and letters, and only one of the kind whom I
met in Russia.  He had been an industrious student at the University
of Upsala, and loved wine, women, and good cheer.  He asked me to
dine with Locatelli at Catherinhoff, one of the imperial mansions,
which the empress had assigned to the old theatrical manager for the
remainder of his days.  He was astonished to see me, and I was more
astonished still to find that he had turned taverner, for he gave an
excellent dinner every day to all who cared to pay a rouble,
exclusive of wine.  M. d'Alsuwieff introduced me to his colleague in
the ministry, Teploff, whose vice was that he loved boys, and his
virtue that he had strangled Peter III.

Madame Mecour, the dancer, introduced me to her lover, Ghelaghin,
also a minister.  He had spent twenty years of his life in Siberia.

A letter from Da Loglio got me a warm welcome from the castrato
Luini, a delightful man, who kept a splendid table.  He was the lover
of Colonna, the singer, but their affection seemed to me a torment,
for they could scarce live together in peace for a single day.  At
Luini's house I met another castrato, Millico, a great friend of the
chief huntsman, Narischkin, who also became one of my friends.  This
Narischkin, a pleasant and a well-informed man, was the husband of
the famous Maria Paulovna.  It was at the chief huntsman's splendid
table that I met Calogeso Plato, now archbishop of Novgorod, and then
chaplain to the empress.  This monk was a Russian, and a master of
ruses, understood Greek, and spoke Latin and French, and was what
would be called a fine man.  It was no wonder that he rose to such a
height, as in Russia the nobility never lower themselves by accepting
church dignities.

Da Loglio had given me a letter for the Princess Daschkoff, and I
took it to her country house, at the distance of three versts from
St. Petersburg.  She had been exiled from the capital, because,
having assisted Catherine to ascend the throne, she claimed to share
it with her.

I found the princess mourning for the loss of her husband.  She
welcomed me kindly, and promised to speak to M. Panin on my behalf;
and three days later she wrote to me that I could call on that
nobleman as soon as I liked.  This was a specimen of the empress's
magnanimity; she had disgraced the princess, but she allowed her
favourite minister to pay his court to her every evening.  I have
heard, on good authority, that Panin was not the princess's lover,
but her father.  She is now the President of the Academy of Science,
and I suppose the literati must look upon her as another Minerva, or
else they would be ashamed to have a woman at their head.  For
completeness' sake the Russians should get a woman to command their
armies, but Joan d'Arcs are scarce.

Melissino and I were present at an extraordinary ceremony on the Day
of the Epiphany, namely the blessing of the Neva, then covered with
five feet of ice.

After the benediction of the waters children were baptized by being
plunged into a large hole which had been made in the ice.  On the day
on which I was present the priest happened to let one of the children
slip through his hands.

"Drugoi!" he cried.

That is, "Give me another."  But my surprise may be imagined when I
saw that the father and mother of the child were in an ecstasy of
joy; they were certain that the babe had been carried straight to
heaven.  Happy ignorance!

I had a letter from the Florentine Madame Bregonci for her friend the
Venetian Roccolini, who had left Venice to go and sing at the St.
Petersburg Theatre, though she did not know a note of music, and had
never appeared on the stage.  The empress laughed at her, and said
she feared there was no opening in St. Petersburg for her peculiar
talents, but the Roccolini, who was known as La Vicenza, was not the
woman to lose heart for so small a check.  She became an intimate
friend of a Frenchwoman named Prote, the wife of a merchant who lived
with the chief huntsman.  She was at the same time his mistress and
the confidante of his wife Maria Petrovna, who did not like her
husband, and was very much obliged to the Frenchwoman for delivering
her from the conjugal importunities.

This Prote was one of the handsomest women I have ever seen, and
undoubtedly the handsomest in St. Petersburg at that time.  She was
in the flower of her age.  She had at once a wonderful taste for
gallantry and for all the mysteries of the toilette.  In dress she
surpassed everyone, and as she was witty and amusing she captivated
all hearts.  Such was the woman whose friend and procuress La Vicenza
had become.  She received the applications of those who were in love
with Madame Prote, and passed them on, while, whether a lover's suit
was accepted or not, the procuress got something out of him.

I recognized Signora Roccolini as soon as I saw her, but as twenty
years had elapsed since our last meeting she did not wonder at my
appearing not to know her, and made no efforts to refresh my memory.
Her brother was called Montellato, and he it was who tried to
assassinate me one night in St. Mark's Square, as I was leaving the
Ridotto.  The plot that would have cost me my life, if I had not made
my escape from the window, was laid in the Roccolini's house.

She welcomed me as a fellow-countryman in a strange land, told me of
her struggles, and added that now she had an easy life of it, and
associated with the pleasantest ladies in St. Petersburg.

"I am astonished that you have not met the fair Madame Prote at the
chief huntsman's, for she is the darling of his heart.  Come and take
coffee with me to-morrow, and you shall see a wonder."

I kept the appointment, and I found the lady even more beautiful than
the Venetian's praises of her had led me to expect.  I was dazzled by
her beauty, but not being a rich man I felt that I must set my wits
to work if I wanted to enjoy her.  I asked her name, though I knew it
quite well, and she replied, "Prote."

"I am glad to hear it, madam," said I, "for you thereby promise to be
mine."

"How so?" said she, with a charming smile.  I explained the pun, and
made her laugh.  I told her amusing stories, and let her know the
effect that her beauty had produced on me, and that I hoped time
would soften her heart to me.  The acquaintance was made, and
thenceforth I never went to Narischkin's without calling on her,
either before or after dinner.

The Polish ambassador returned about that time, and I had to forego
my enjoyment of the fair Anglade, who accepted a very advantegeous
proposal which was made her by Count Brawn.  This charming
Frenchwoman died of the small-pox a few months later, and there can
be no doubt that her death was a blessing, as she would have fallen
into misery and poverty after her beauty had once decayed.

I desired to succeed with Madame Prote, and with that idea I asked
her to dinner at Locatelli's with Luini, Colonna, Zinowieff, Signora
Vicenza, and a violinist, her lover.  We had an excellent dinner
washed down with plenty of wine, and the spirits of the company were
wound up to the pitch I desired.  After the repast each gentleman
went apart with his lady, and I was on the point of success when an
untoward accident interrupted us.  We were summoned to see the proofs
of Luini's prowess; he had gone out shooting with his dogs and guns.

As I was walking away from Catherinhoff with Zinowieff I noticed a
young country-woman whose beauty astonished me.  I pointed her out to
the young officer, and we made for her; but she fled away with great
activity to a little cottage, where we followed her.  We went in and
saw the father, mother, and some children, and in a corner the timid
form of the fair maiden.

Zinowieff (who, by the way, was for twenty years Russian ambassador
at Madrid) had a long conversation in Russian with the father.  I did
not understand what was said, but I guessed it referred to the girl
because, when her father called her, she advanced submissively, and
stood modestly before us.

The conversation over, Zinowieff went out, and I followed him after
giving the master of the house a rouble.  Zinowieff told me what had
passed, saying that he had asked the father if he would let him have
the daughter as a maid-servant, and the father had replied that it
should be so with all his heart, but that he must have a hundred
roubles for her, as she was still a virgin.  "So you see," added
Zinowieff, "the matter is quite simple."

"How simple?"

"Why, yes; only a hundred roubles."

"And supposing me to be inclined to give that sum?"

"Then she would be your servant, and you could do anything you liked
with her, except kill her."

"And supposing she is not willing?"

"That never happens, but if it did you could have beaten her."

"Well, if she is satisfied and I enjoy her, can I still continue to
keep her?"

"You will be her master, I tell you, and can have her arrested if she
attempts to escape, unless she can return the hundred roubles you
gave for her."

"What must I give her per month?"

"Nothing, except enough to eat and drink.  You must also let her go
to the baths on Saturday and to the church on Sunday."

"Can I make her come with me when I leave St. Petersburg?"

"No, unless you obtain permission and find a surety, for though the
girl would be your slave she would still be a slave to the empress."

"Very good; then will you arrange this matter for me?  I will give
the hundred roubles, and I promise you I will not treat her as a
slave.  But I hope you will care for my interests, as I do not wish
to be duped."

"I promise you you shall not be duped; I will see to everything.
Would you like her now?"

"No, to-morrow."

"Very good; then to-morrow it shall be."

We returned to St. Petersburg in a phaeton, and the next day at nine
o'clock I called on Zinowieff, who said he was delighted to do me
this small service.  On the way he said that if I liked he could get
me a perfect seraglio of pretty girls in a few days.

"No," said I, "one is enough."  And I gave him the hundred roubles.

We arrived at the cottage, where we found the father, mother, and
daughter.  Zinowieff explained his business crudely enough, after the
custom of the country, and the father thanked St. Nicholas for the
good luck he had sent him.  He spoke to his daughter, who looked at
me and softly uttered the necessary yes.

Zinowieff then told me that I ought to ascertain that matters were
intact, as I was going to pay for a virgin.  I was afraid of
offending her, and would have nothing to do with it; but Zinowieff
said the girl would be mortified if I did not examine her, and that
she would be delighted if I place her in a position to prove before
her father and mother that her conduct had always been virtuous.  I
therefore made the examination as modestly as I could, and I found
her to be intact.  To tell the truth, I should not have said anything
if things had been otherwise.

Zinowieff then gave the hundred roubles to the father, who handed
them to his daughter, and she only took them to return them to her
mother.  My servant and coachman were then called in to witness as
arrangement of which they knew nothing.

I called her Zaira, and she got into the carriage and returned with
me to St. Petersburg in her coarse clothes, without a chemise of any
kind.  After I had dropped Zinowieff at his lodging I went home, and
for four days I was engaged in collecting and arranging my slave's
toilet, not resting till I had dressed her modestly in the French
style.  In less than three months she had learnt enough Italian to
tell me what she wanted and to understand me.  She soon loved me, and
afterwards she got jealous.  But we shall hear more of her in the
following chapter.




CHAPTER XX

Crevecoeur--Bomback--Journey to Moscow--My Adventures At
St. Petersburg

The day on which I took Zaira I sent Lambert away, for I did not know
what to do with him.  He got drunk every day, and when in his cups he
was unbearable.  Nobody would have anything to say to him except as a
common soldier, and that is not an enviable position in Russia.  I
got him a passport for Berlin, and gave him enough money for the
journey.  I heard afterwards that he entered the Austrian service.

In May, Zaira had become so beautiful that when I went to Moscow I
dared not leave her behind me, so I took her in place of a servant.
It was delicious to me to hear her chattering in the Venetian dialect
I had taught her.  On a Saturday I would go with her to the bath
where thirty of forty naked men and women were bathing together
without the slightest constraint.  This absence of shame must arise,
I should imagine, from native innocence; but I wondered that none
looked at Zaira, who seemed to me the original of the statue of
Psyche I had seen at the Villa Borghese at Rome.  She was only
fourteen, so her breast was not yet developed, and she bore about her
few traces of puberty.  Her skin was as white as snow, and her ebony
tresses covered the whole of her body, save in a few places where the
dazzling whiteness of her skin shone through.  Her eyebrows were
perfectly shaped, and her eyes, though they might have been larger,
could not have been more brilliant or more expressive.  If it had not
been for her furious jealousy and her blind confidence in fortune-
telling by cards, which she consulted every day, Zaira would have
been a paragon among women, and I should never have left her.

A young and distinguished-looking Frenchman came to St. Petersburg
with a young Parisian named La Riviere, who was tolerably pretty but
quite devoid of education, unless it were that education common to
all the girls who sell their charms in Paris.  This young man came to
me with a letter from Prince Charles of Courland, who said that if I
could do anything for the young couple he would be grateful to me.
They arrived just as I was breakfasting with Zaira.

"You must tell me," said I to the young Frenchman, "in what way I can
be of use to you."

"By admitting us to your company, and introducing us to your
friends."

"Well, I am a stranger here, and I will come and see you, and you can
come and see me, and I shall be delighted; but I never dine at home.
As to my friends, you must feel that, being a stranger, I could not
introduce you and the lady.  Is she your wife?  People will ask me
who you are, and what you are doing at St. Petersburg.  What am I to
say?  I wonder Prince Charles did not send you to someone else."

"I am a gentleman of Lorraine, and Madame la Riviere is my mistress,
and my object in coming to St. Petersburg is to amuse myself."

"Then I don't know to whom I could introduce you under the
circumstances; but I should think you will be able to find plenty of
amusement without knowing anyone.  The theatres, the streets, and
even the Court entertainments, are open to everyone.  I suppose you
have plenty of money?"

"That's exactly what I haven't got, and I don't expect any either."

"Well, I have not much more, but you really astonish me.  How could
you have been so foolish as to come here without money?"

"Well, my mistress said we could do with what money we got from day
to day.  She induced me to leave Paris without a farthing, and up to
now it seems to me that she is right.  We have managed to get on
somehow."

"Then she has the purse?"

"My purse," said she, "is in the pockets of my friends."

"I understand, and I am sure you have no difficulty in finding the
wherewithal to live.  If I had such a purse, it should be opened for
you, but I am not a rich man."

Bomback, a citizen of Hamburg, whom I had known in England whence he
had fled on account of his debts, had come to St. Petersburg and
entered the army.  He was the son of a rich merchant and kept up a
house, a carriage, and an army of servants; he was a lover of good
cheer, women, and gambling, and contracted debts everywhere.  He was
an ugly man, but full of wit and energy.  He happened to call on me
just as I was addressing the strange traveller whose purse was in the
pocket of her friends.  I introduced the couple to him, telling the
whole story, the item of the purse excepted.  The adventure was just
to Bomback's taste, and he began making advances to Madame la
Riviere, who received them in a thoroughly professional spirit, and I
was inwardly amused and felt that her axiom was a true one.  Bomback
asked them to dine with him the next day, and begged them to come and
take an unceremonious dinner the same day with him at Crasnacaback.
I was included in the invitation, and Zaira, not understanding
French, asked me what we were talking about, and on my telling her
expressed a desire to accompany me.  I gave in to appease her, for I
knew the wish proceeded from jealousy, and that if I did not consent
I should be tormented by tears, ill-humour, reproaches, melancholy,
etc.  This had occurred several times before, and so violent had she
been that I had been compelled to conform to the custom of the
country and beat her.  Strange to say, I could not have taken a
better way to prove my love.  Such is the character of the Russian
women.  After the blows had been given, by slow degrees she became
affectionate again, and a love encounter sealed the reconciliation.

Bomback left us to make his preparations in high spirits, and while
Zaira was dressing, Madame Riviere talked in such a manner as to make
me almost think that I was absolutely deficient in knowledge of the
world.  The astonishing thing was that her lover did not seem in the
least ashamed of the part he had to play.  He might say that he was
in love with the Messalina, but the ex.  cuse would not have been
admissible.

The party was a merry one.  Bomback talked to the adventuress, Zaira
sat on my knee, and Crevecoeur ate and drank, laughed in season and
out of season, and walked up and down.  The crafty Madame Riviere
incited Bomback to risk twenty-five roubles at quinze; he lost and
paid pleasantly, and only got a kiss for his money.  Zaira, who was
delighted to be able to watch over me and my fidelity, jested
pleasantly on the Frenchwoman and the complaisance of her lover.
This was altogether beyond her comprehension, and she could not
understand how he could bear such deeds as were done before his face.

The next day I went to Bomback by myself, as I was sure of meeting
young Russian officers, who would have annoyed me by making love to
Zaira in their own language.  I found the two travellers and the
brothers Lunin, then lieutenants but now generals.  The younger of
them was as fair and pretty as any girl.  He had been the beloved of
the minister Teploff, and, like a lad of wit, he not only was not
ashamed but openly boasted that it was his custom to secure the good-
will of all men by his caresses.

He had imagined the rich citizen of Hamburg to be of the same tastes
as Teploff, and he had not been mistaken; and so he degraded me by
forming the same supposition.  With this idea he seated himself next
to me at table, and behaved himself in such a manner during dinner
that I began to believe him to be a girl in man's clothes.

After dinner, as I was sitting at the fire, between him and the
Frenchman, I imparted my suspicions to him; but jealous of the
superiority of his sex, he displayed proof of it on the spot, and
forthwith got hold of me and put himself in a position to make my
happiness and his own as he called it.  I confess, to my shame, that
he might perhaps have succeeded, if Madame la Riviere, indignant at
this encroachment of her peculiar province, had not made him desist.

Lunin the elder, Crevecceur, and Bomback, who had been for a walk,
returned at nightfall with two or three friends, and easily consoled
the Frenchman for the poor entertainment the younger Lunin and myself
had given him.

Bomback held a bank at faro, which only came to an end at eleven,
when the money was all gone.  We then supped, and the real orgy
began, in which la Riviere bore the brunt in a manner that was simply
astonishing.  I and my friend Lunin were merely spectators, and poor
Crevecoeur had gone to bed.  We did not separate till day-break.

I got home, and, fortunately for myself, escaped the bottle which
Zaira flung at my head, and which would infallibly have killed me if
it had hit me.  She threw herself on to the ground, and began to
strike it with her forehead.  I thought she had gone mad, and
wondered whether I had better call for assistance; but she became
quiet enough to call me assassin and traitor, with all the other
abusive epithets that she could remember.  To convict me of my crime
she shewed me twenty-five cards, placed in order, and on them she
displayed the various enormities of which I had been guilty.

I let her go on till her rage was somewhat exhausted, and then,
having thrown her divining apparatus into the fire, I looked at her
in pity and anger, and said that we must part the next day, as she
had narrowly escaped killing me.  I confessed that I had been with
Bomback, and that there had been a girl in the house; but I denied
all the other sins of which she accused me.  I then went to sleep
without taking the slightest notice of her, in spite of all she said
and did to prove her repentance.

I woke after a few hours to find her sleeping soundly, and I began to
consider how I could best rid myself of the girl, who would probably
kill me if we continued living together.  Whilst I was absorbed in
these thoughts she awoke, and falling at my feet wept and professed
her utter repentance, and promised never to touch another card as
long as I kept her.

At last I could resist her entreaties no longer, so I took her in my
arms and forgave her; and we did not part till she had received
undeniable proofs of the return of my affection.  I intended to start
for Moscow in three days, and she was delighted when she heard she
was to go.

Three circumstances had won me this young girl's furious affection.
In the first place I often took her to see her family, with whom I
always left a rouble; in the second I made her eat with me; and in
the third I had beaten her three or four times when she had tried to
prevent me going out.

In Russia beating is a matter of necessity, for words have no force
whatever.  A servant, mistress, or courtezan understands nothing but
the lash.  Words are altogether thrown away, but a few good strokes
are entirely efficacious.  The servant, whose soul is still more
enslaved than his body, reasons somewhat as follows, after he has had
a beating:

"My master has not sent me away, but beaten me; therefore he loves
me, and I ought to be attached to him."

It is the same with the Russian soldier, and in fact with everybody.
Honour stands for nothing, but with the knout and brandy one can get
anything from them except heroical enthusiasm.

Papanelopulo laughed at me when I said that as I liked my Cossack I
should endeavour to correct him with words only when he took too much
brandy.

"If you do not beat him," he said, "he will end by beating you;" and
he spoke the truth.

One day, when he was so drunk as to be unable to attend on me, I
began to scold him, and threatened him with the stick if he did not
mend his ways.  As soon as he saw my cane lifted, he ran at me and
got hold of it; and if I had not knocked him down immediately, he
would doubtless have beaten me.  I dismissed him on the spot.  There
is not a better servant in the world than a Russian.  He works
without ceasing, sleeps in front of the door of his master's bedroom
to be always ready to fulfil his orders, never answering his
reproaches, incapable of theft.  But after drinking a little too much
brandy he becomes a perfect monster; and drunkenness is the vice of
the whole nation.

A coachman knows no other way of resisting the bitter cold to which
he is exposed, than by drinking rye brandy.  It sometimes happens
that he drinks till he falls asleep, and then there is no awaking for
him in this world.  Unless one is very careful, it is easy to lose an
ear, the nose, a cheek, or a lip by frost bites.  One day as I was
walking out on a bitterly cold day, a Russian noticed that one of my
ears was frozen.  He ran up to me and rubbed the affected part with a
handful of snow till the circulation was restored.  I asked him how
he had noticed my state, and he said he had remarked the livid
whiteness of my ear, and this, he said, was always a sign that the
frost had taken it.  What surprised me most of all is that sometimes
the part grows again after it has dropped off.  Prince Charles of
Courland assured me that he had cost his nose in Siberia, and that it
had grown again the next summer.  I have been assured of the truth of
this by several Russians.

About this time the empress made the architect Rinaldi, who had been
fifty years in St. Petersburg, build her an enormous wooden
amphitheatre so large as to cover the whole of the space in front of
the palace.  It would contain a hundred thousand spectators, and in
it Catherine intended to give a vast tournament to all the knights of
her empire.  There were to be four parties of a hundred knights each,
and all the cavaliers were to be clad in the national costume of the
nations they represented.  All the Russians were informed of this
great festival, which was to be given at the expense of the
sovereign, and the princes, counts, and barons were already arriving
with their chargers from the most remote parts of the empire.  Prince
Charles of Courland wrote informing me of his intention to be
present.

It had been ordained, that the tournament should take place on the
first fine day, and this precaution was a very wise one; for,
excepting in the season of the hard frosts, a day without rain, or
snow, or wind, is a marvel.  In Italy, Spain, and France, one can
reckon on fine weather, and bad weather is the exception, but it is
quite the contrary in Russia.  Ever since I have known this home of
frost and the cold north wind, I laugh when I hear travelling
Russians talking of the fine climate of their native country.
However, it is a pardonable weakness, most of us prefer "mine" to
"thine;" nobles affect to consider themselves of purer blood than the
peasants from whom they sprang, and the Romans and other ancient
nations pretended that they were the children of the gods, to draw a
veil over their actual ancestors who were doubtless robbers.  The
truth is, that during the whole year 1756 there was not one fine day
in Russia, or in Ingria at all events, and the mere proofs of this
statement may be found in the fact that the tournament was not held
in that year.  It was postponed till the next, and the princes,
counts, barons, and knights spent the winter in the capital, unless
their purses forbade them to indulge in the luxuries of Court life.
The dear Prince of Courland was in this case, to my great
disappointment.

Having made all arrangements for my journey to Moscow, I got into my
sleeping carriage with Zaira, having a servant behind who could speak
both Russian and German.  For twenty-four roubles the chevochic
(hirer out of horses) engaged to carry me to Moscow in six days and
seven nights with six horses.  This struck me as being extremely
cheap.  The distance is seventy-two Russian stages, almost equivalent
to five hundred Italian miles, or a hundred and sixty French leagues.

We set out just as a cannon shot from the citadel announced the close
of day.  It was towards the end of May, in which month there is
literally no night at St. Petersburg.  Without the report of the
cannon no one would be able to tell when the day ended and the night
began.  One can read a letter at midnight, and the moonlight makes no
appreciable difference.  This continual day lasts for eight weeks,
and during that time no one lights a candle.  At Moscow it is
different; a candle is always necessary at midnight if one wished to
read.

We reached Novgorod in forty-eight hours, and here the chevochic
allowed us a rest of five hours.  I saw a circumstance there which
surprised me very much, though one has no business to be surprised at
anything if one travels much, and especially in a land of half
savages.  I asked the chevochic to drink, but he appeared to be in
great melancholy.  I enquired what was the matter, and he told Zaira
that one of his horses had refused to eat, and that it was clear that
if he could not eat he could not work.  We followed him into the
stable, and found the horse looking oppressed by care, its head
lowered and motionless; it had evidently got no appetite.  His master
began a pathetic oration, looking tenderly at the animal, as if to
arouse it to a sense of duty, and then taking its head, and kissing
it lovingly, he put it into the manger, but to no purpose.  Then the
man began to weep bitterly, but in such a way that I had the greatest
difficulty to prevent myself laughing, for I could see that he wept
in the hope that his tears might soften the brute's heart.  When he
had wept some time he again put the horse's head into the manger, but
again to no purpose.  At this he got furious and swore to be avenged.
He led the horse out of the stable, tied it to a post, and beat it
with a thick stick for a quarter of an hour so violently that my
heart bled for the poor animal.  At last the chevochic was tired out,
and taking the horse back to the stable he fastened up his head once
more, and to my astonishment it began to devour its provender with
the greatest appetite.  At this the master jumped for joy, laughed,
sang, and committed a thousand extravagancies, as if to shew the
horse how happy it had made him.  I was beside myself with
astonishment, and concluded that such treatment would have succeeded
nowhere but in Russia, where the stick seems to be the panacea or
universal medicine.

They tell me, however, that the stick is gradually going out of
fashion.  Peter the Great used to beat his generals black and blue,
and in his days a lieutenant had to receive with all submission the
cuffs of his captain, who bent before the blows of his major, who did
the same to his colonel, who received chastisement from his general.
So I was informed by old General Woyakoff, who was a pupil of Peter
the Great, and had often been beaten by the great emperor, the
founder of St. Petersburg.

It seems to me that I have scarcely said anything about this great
and famous capital, which in my opinion is built on somewhat
precarious foundations.  No one but Peter could have thus given the
lie to Nature by building his immense palaces of marble and granite
on mud and shifting sand.  They tell me that the town is now in its
manhood, to the honour of the great Catherine; but in the year 1765
it was still in its minority, and seemed to me only to have been
built with the childish aim of seeing it fall into ruins.  Streets
were built with the certainty of having to repair them in six months'
time.  The whole place proclaimed itself to be the whim of a despot.
If it is to be durable constant care will be required, for nature
never gives up its rights and reasserts them when the constraint of
man is withdrawn.  My theory is that sooner or later the soil must
give way and drag the vast city with it.

We reached Moscow in the time the chevochic had promised.  As the
same horses were used for the whole journey, it would have been
impossible to travel mote quickly.  A Russian told me that the
Empress Elizabeth had done the journey in fifty-two hours.

"You mean that she issued a ukase to the effect that she had done
it," said a Russian of the old school; "and if she had liked she
could have travelled more quickly still; it was only a question of
the wording of the ukase."

Even when I was in Russia it was not allowable to doubt the
infallibility of a ukase, and to do so was, equivalent to high
treason.  One day I was crossing a canal at St. Petersburg by a small
wooden bridge; Melissino Papanelopulo, and some other Russians were
with me.  I began to abuse the wooden bridge, which I characterized
as both mean and dangerous.  One of my companions said that on such a
day it would be replaced by a fine stone bridge, as the empress had
to pass there on some state occasion.  The day named way three weeks
off, and I said plainly that it was impossible.  One of the Russians
looked askance at me, and said there was no doubt about it, as a
ukase had been published ordering that the bridge should be built.  I
was going to answer him, but Papanelopulo gave my hand a squeeze, and
whispered "Taci!" (hush).

The bridge was not built, but I was not justified, for the empress
published another ukase in which she declared it to be her gracious
pleasure that the bridge should not be built till the following year.
If anyone would see what a pure despotism is like, let him go to
Russia.

The Russian sovereigns use the language of despotism on all
occasions.  One day I saw the empress, dressed in man's clothes,
going out for a ride.  Her master of the horse, Prince Repnin, held
the bridle of the horse, which suddenly gave him a kick which broke
his anklebone.  The empress instantly ordained that the horse should
be taken away, and that no one should mount it again under pain of
death.  All official positions in Russia have military rank assigned
to them, and this sufficiently indicates the nature of the
Government.  The coachman-in-chief of her imperial highness holds the
rank of colonel, as also does her chief cook.  The castrato Luini was
a lieutenant-colonel, and the painter Toretti only a captain, because
he had only eight hundred roubles a year, while the coachman had
three thousand.  The sentinels at the doors of the palace have their
muskets crossed, and ask those who wish to pass through what is their
rank.  When I was asked this question, I stopped short; but the
quick-witted officer asked me how much I had a year, and on my
replying, at a hazard, three thousand roubles, he gave me the rank of
general, and I was allowed to pass.  I saw the czarina for a moment;
she stopped at the door and took off her gloves to give her hands to
be kissed by the officer and the two sentinels.  By such means as
this she had won the affection of the corps, commanded by Gregorius
Gregorovitch Orloff, on which her safety depended in case of
revolution.

I made the following notes when I saw the empress hearing mass in her
chapel.  The protopapa, or bishop, received her at the door to give
her the holy water, and she kissed his episcopal ring, while the
prelate, whose beard was a couple of feet in length, lowered his head
to kiss the hands of his temporal sovereign and spiritual head, for
in Russia the he or she on the throne is the spiritual as well as
temporal head of the Church.

She did not evidence the least devotion during mass; hypocrisy did
not seem to be one of her vices.  Now she smiled at one of her suite,
now at another, and occasionally she addressed the favourite, not
because she had anything to say to him, but to make him an object of
envy to the others.

One evening, as she was leaving the theatre where Metastasio's
Olympiade had been performed, I heard her say,--

"The music of that opera has given the greatest pleasure to everyone,
so of course I am delighted with it; but it wearies me, nevertheless.
Music is a fine thing, but I cannot understand how anyone who is
seriously occupied can love it passionately.  I will have Buranello
here, and I wonder whether he will interest me in music, but I am
afraid nature did not constitute me to feel all its charms."

She always argued in that way.  In due time I will set down her words
to me when I returned from Moscow.  When I arrived at that city I got
down at a good inn, where they gave me two rooms and a coach-house
for my carriage.  After dinner I hired a small carriage and a guide
who could speak French.  My carriage was drawn by four horses, for
Moscow is a vast city composed of four distinct towns, and many of
the streets are rough and ill-paved.  I had five or six letters of
introduction, and I determined to take them all.  I took Zaira with
me, as she was as curious to see everything as a girl of fourteen
naturally is.  I do not remember what feast the Greek Church was
keeping on that day, but I shall never forget the terrific bell-
ringing with which my ears were assailed, for there are churches
every where.  The country people were engaged in sowing their grain,
to reap it in September.  They laughed at our Southern custom of
sowing eight months earlier, as unnecessary and even prejudicial to
the crops, but I do not know where the right lies.  Perhaps we may
both be right, for there is no master to compare with experience.
I took all the introductions I had received from Narischkin, Prince
Repnin, the worthy Pananelopulo, and Melissino's brother.  The next
morning the whole of the persons at whose houses I had left letters
called on me.  They all asked Zaira and myself to dinner, and I
accepted the invitation of the first comer, M. Dinidoff, and promised
to dine with the rest on the following days, Zaira, who had been
tutored by me to some extent, was delighted to shew me that she was
worthy of the position she occupied.  She was exquisitely dressed,
and won golden opinions everywhere, for our hosts did not care to
enquire whether she were my daughter, my mistress, or my servant, for
in this matter, as in many others, the Russians are excessively
indulgent.  Those who have not seen Moscow have not seen Russia, for
the people of St, Petersburg are not really Russians at all.  Their
court manners are very different from their manners 'au naturel', and
it may be said with truth that the true Russian is as a stranger in
St. Petersburg.  The citizens of, Moscow, and especially the rich
ones, speak with pity of those, who for one reason or another, had
expatriated themselves; and with them to expatriate one's self is to
leave Moscow, which they consider as their native land.  They look on
St. Petersburg with an envious eve, and call it the ruin of Russia.
I do not know whether this is a just view to take of the case, I
merely repeat what I have heard.

In the course of a week I saw all the sights of Moscow--the
manufacturers, the churches, the remains of the old days, the
museums, the libraries, (of no interest to my mind), not forgetting
the famous bell.  I noticed that their bells are not allowed to swing
like ours, but are motionless, being rung by a rope attached to the
clapper.

I thought the Moscow women more handsome than those of St.
Petersburg, and I attribute this to the great superiority of the air.
They are gentle and accessible by nature; and to obtain the favour of
a kiss on the lips, one need only make a show of kissing their hands.

There was good fare in plenty, but no delicacy in its composition or
arrangement.  Their table is always open to friends and
acquaintances, and a friend may bring to five or six persons to
dinner, and even at the end of the meals you will never hear a
Russian say, "We have had dinner; you have come too late."  Their
souls are not black enough for them to pronounce such words as this.
Notice is given to the cook, and the dinner begins over again.  They
have a delicious drink, the name of which I do not remember; but it
is much superior to the sherbet of Constantinople.  The numerous
servants are not given water, but a light, nourishing, and agreeable
fluid, which may be purchased very cheaply.  They all hold St.
Nicholas in the greatest reverence, only praying to God through the
mediation of this saint, whose picture is always suspended in the
principal room of the house.  A person coming in makes first a bow to
the image and then a bow to the master, and if perchance the image is
absent, the Russian, after gazing all round, stands confused and
motionless, not knowing what to do.  As a general rule the Muscovites
are the most superstitious Christians in the world.  Their liturgy is
in Greek, of which the people understand nothing, and the clergy,
themselves extremely ignorant, gladly leave them completely in the
dark on all matters connected with religion.  I could never make them
understand that the only reason for the Roman Christians making the
sign of the Cross from left to right, while the Greeks make it from
right to left, is that we say 'spiritus sancti', while they say
'agion pneuma'.

"If you said pneuma agion," I used to say, "then you would cross
yourself like us, and if we said sancti spiritus we should cross
ourselves like you."

"The adjective," replied my interlocutor, "should always precede the
substantive, for we should never utter the name of God without first
giving Him some honourable epithet."

Such are nearly all the differences which divide the two churches,
without reckoning the numerous idle tales which they have as well as
ourselves, and which are by no means the least cherished articles of
their faith.

We returned to St. Petersburg by the way we had come, but Zaira would
have liked me never to leave Moscow.  She had become so much in love
with me by force of constant association that I could not think
without a pang of the moment of separation.  The day after our
arrival in the capital I took her to her home, where she shewed her
father all the little presents I had given her, and told him of the
honour she had received as my daughter, which made the good man laugh
heartily.

The first piece of news I heard was that a ukase had been issued,
ordering the erection of a temple dedicated to God in the Moscoi
opposite to the house where I resided.  The empress had entrusted
Rinaldi, the architect, with the erection.  He asked her what emblem
he should put above the portal, and she replied,--

"No emblem at all, only the name of God in large letters."

"I will put a triangle."

"No triangle at all; but only the name of God in whatever language
you like, and nothing more."

The second piece of news was that Bomback had fled and had been
captured at Mitau, where he believed himself in safety.  M. de
Simolia had arrested him.  It was a grave case, for he had deserted;
however, he was given his life, and sent into barracks at
Kamstchatka.  Crevecoeur and his mistress had departed, carrying some
money with them, and a Florentine adventurer named Billotti had fled
with eighteen thousand roubles belonging to Papanelopulo, but a
certain Bori, the worthy Greek's factotum, had caught him at Mitau
and brought him back to St. Petersburg, where he was now in prison.
Prince Charles of Courland arrived about this time, and I hastened to
call upon him as soon as he advised me of his coming.  He was lodging
in a house belonging to Count Dimidoff, who owned large iron mines,
and had made the whole house of iron, from attic to basement.  The
prince had brought his mistress with him, but she was still in an
ill-humour, and he was beginning to get heartily sick of her.  The
man was to be pitied, for he could not get rid of her without finding
her a husband, and this husband became more difficult to find every
day.  When the prince saw how happy I was with my Zaira, he could not
help thinking how easily happiness may be won; but the fatal desire
for luxury and empty show spoils all, and renders the very sweets of
life as bitter as gall.

I was indeed considered happy, and I liked to appear so, but in my
heart I was wretched.  Ever since my imprisonment under The Leads, I
had been subject to haemorrhoids, which came on three or four times a
year.  At St. Petersburg I had a serious attack, and the daily pain
and anxiety embittered my existence.  A vegetarian doctor called
Senapios, for whom I had sent, gave me the sad news that I had a
blind or incomplete fistula in the rectum, and according to him
nothing but the cruel pistoury would give me any relief, and indeed
he said I had no time to lose.  I had to agree, in spite of my
dislike to the operation; but fortunately the clever surgeon whom the
doctor summoned pronounced that if I would have patience nature
itself would give me relief.  I had much to endure, especially from
the severe dieting to which I was subjected, but which doubtless did
me good.

Colonel Melissino asked me to be present at a review which was to
take place at three versts from St. Petersburg, and was to be
succeeded by a dinner to twenty-four guests, given by General Orloff.
I went with the prince, and saw a cannon fired twenty times in a
minute, testing the performance with my watch.

My neighbour at dinner was the French ambassador.  Wishing to drink
deeply, after the Russian fashion, and thinking the Hungarian wine as
innocent as champagne, he drank so bravely that at the end of dinner
he had lost the use of his legs.  Count Orloff made him drink still
more, and then he fell asleep and was laid on a bed.

The gaiety of the meal gave me some idea of Russian wit.  I did not
understand the language, so M. Zinowieff translated the curious
sallies to me while the applause they had raised was still
resounding.

Melissino rose to his feet, holding a large goblet full of Hungarian
wine in his hand.  There was a general silence to listen to him.  He
drank the health of General Orloff in these words:

"May you die when you become rich."

The applause was general, for the allusion was to the unbounded
generosity of Orloff.  The general's reply struck me as better still,
but it was equally rugged in character.  He, too, took a full cup,
and turning to Melissino, said,

"May you never die till I slay you!"

The applause was furious, for he was their host and their general.

The Russian wit is of the energetic kind, devoid of grace; all they
care about is directness and vigour.

Voltaire had just sent the empress his "Philosophy of History," which
he had written for her and dedicated to her.  A month after, an
edition of three thousand copies came by sea, and was sold out in a
week, for all the Russians who knew a little French were eager to
possess a copy of the work.  The leaders of the Voltaireans were two
noblemen, named, respectively, Stroganoff and Schuvaloff.  I have
seen verses written by the former of these as good as Voltaire's own
verses, and twenty years later I saw an ode by the latter of which
Voltaire would not have been ashamed, but the subject was ill chosen;
for it treated of the death of the great philosopher who had so
studiously avoided using his pen on melancholy themes.  In those days
all Russians with any pretensions to literature read nothing but
Voltaire, and when they had read all his writings they thought
themselves as wise as their master.  To me they seemed pigmies
mimicking a giant.  I told them that they ought to read all the books
from which Voltaire had drawn his immense learning, and then,
perhaps, they might become as wise as he.  I remember the saying of a
wise man at Rome: "Beware of the man of one book."  I wonder whether
the Russians are more profound now; but that is a question I cannot
answer.  At Dresden I knew Prince Biloselski, who was on his way back
to Russia after having been ambassador at Turin.  He was the author
of an admirable world on metaphysics, and the analysis of the soul
and reason.

Count Panin was the tutor of Paul Petrovitch, heir-presumptive to the
throne.  The young prince had a severe master, and dared not even
applaud an air at the opera unless he first received permission to do
so from his mentor.

When a courier brought the news of the sudden death of Francis I.,
Emperor of Germany and of the Holy Roman Empire, the czarina being at
Czarsko-Zelo, the count minister-tutor was in the palace with his
pupil, then eleven years old.  The courier came at noon, and gave the
dispatch into the hands of the minister, who was standing in the
midst of a crowd of courtiers of whom I was one.  The prince imperial
was at his right hand.  The minister read the dispatch in a low
voice, and then said:

"This is news indeed.  The Emperor of the Romans has died suddenly."

He then turned to Paul, and said to him,--

"Full court mourning, which your highness will observe for three
months longer than the empress."

"Why so?" said Paul.

"Because, as Duke of Holstein, your highness has a right to attend
the diet of the empire, a privilege," he added, turning to us, "which
Peter the Great desired in vain."

I noted the attention with which the Grand Duke Paul listened to his
mentor, and the care with which he concealed his joy at the news.  I
was immensely pleased with this way of giving instruction.  I said as
much to Prince Lobkowitz, who was standing by me, and he refined on
my praises.  This prince was popular with everyone.  He was even
preferred to his predecessor, Prince Esterhazy; and this was saying a
great deal, for Esterhazy was adored in Russia.  The gay and affable
manner of Prince Lobkowitz made him the life and soul of all the
parties at which he was present.  He was a constant courtier of the
Countess Braun, the reigning beauty, and everyone believed his love
had been crowned with success, though no one could assert as much
positively.

There was a great review held at a distance of twelve or fourteen
versts from St. Petersburg, at which the empress and all her train of
courtiers were present.  The houses of the two or three adjoining
villages were so few and small that it would be impossible for all
the company to find a lodging.  Nevertheless I wished to be present
chiefly to please Zaira, who wanted to be seen with me on such an
occasion.  The review was to last three days; there were to be
fireworks, and a mine was to be exploded besides the evolutions of
the troops.  I went in my travelling carriage, which would serve me
for a lodging if I could get nothing better.

We arrived at the appointed place at eight o'clock in the morning;
the evolutions lasted till noon.  When they were over we went towards
a tavern and had our meal served to us in the carriage, as all the
rooms in the inn were full.

After dinner my coachman tried in vain to find me a lodging, so I
disposed myself to sleep all night in the carriage; and so I did for
the whole time of the review, and fared better than those who had
spent so much money to be ill lodged.  Melissino told me that the
empress thought my idea a very sensible one.  As I was the only
person who had a sleeping carriage, which was quite a portable house
in itself, I had numerous visitors, and Zaira was radiant to be able
to do the honours.

I had a good deal of conversation during the review with Count Tott,
brother of the nobleman who was employed at Constantinople, and known
as Baron Tott.  We had known each other at Paris, and afterwards at
the Hague, where I had the pleasure of being of service to him.  He
had come to St. Petersburg with Madame de Soltikoff, whom he had met
at Paris, and whose lover he was.  He lived with her, went to Court,
and was well received by everyone.

Two or three years after, the empress ordered him to leave St.
Petersburg on account of the troubles in Poland.  It was said that he
kept up a correspondence with his brother, who was endeavouring to
intercept the fleet under the command of Alexis Orloff.  I never
heard what became of him after he left Russia, where he obliged me
with the loan of five hundred roubles, which I have not yet been able
to return to him.

M. Maruzzi, by calling a Venetian merchant, and by birth a Greek,
having left trade to live like a gentleman, came to St. Petersburg
when I was there, and was presented at Court.  He was a fine-looking
man, and was admitted to all the great houses.  The empress treated
him with distinction because she had thoughts of making him her agent
at Venice.  He paid his court to the Countess Braun, but he had
rivals there who were not afraid of him.  He was rich enough, but did
not know how to spend his money; and avarice is a sin which meets
with no pity from the Russian ladies.

I went to Czarsko-Zelo, Peterhoff, and Cronstadt, for if you want to
say you have been in a country you should see as much as possible of
it.  I wrote notes and memorandums on several questions with the hope
of their procuring me a place in the civil service, and all my
productions were laid before the empress but with no effect.  In
Russia they do not think much of foreigners unless they have
specially summoned them; those who come of their own account rarely
make much, and I suspect the Russians are right.




CHAPTER XXI

I See the Empress--My Conversations with Her--The Valville--I Leave
Zaiya I Leave St. Petersburg and Arrive at Warsaw--The Princes Adam
Czartoryski and Sulkowski--The King of Poland--Theatrical Intrigues
--Byanicki

I thought of leaving Russia at the beginning of the autumn, but I was
told by M M. Panin and Alsuwieff that I ought not to go without
having spoken to the empress.

"I should be sorry to do so," I replied, "but as I can't find anyone
to present me to her, I must be resigned."

At last Panin told me to walk in a garden frequented by her majesty
at an early hour, and he said that meeting me, as it were by chance,
she would probably speak to me.  I told him I should like him to be
with her, and he accordingly named a day.

I repaired to the garden, and as I walked about I marvelled at the
statuary it contained, all the statues being made of the worst stone,
and executed in the worst possible taste.  The names cut beneath them
gave the whole the air of a practical joke.  A weeping statue was
Democritus; another, with grinning mouth, was labelled Heraclitus; an
old man with a long beard was Sappho; and an old woman, Avicenna; and
so on.

As I was smiling at this extraordinary collection, I saw the czarina,
preceded by Count Gregorius Orloff, and followed by two ladies,
approaching.  Count Panin was on her left hand.  I stood by the hedge
to let her pass, but as soon as she came up to me she asked,
smilingly, if I had been interested in the statues.  I replied,
following her steps, that I presumed they had been placed there to
impose on fools, or to excite the laughter of those acquainted with
history.

"From what I can make out," she replied, "the secret of the matter is
that my worthy aunt was imposed on, and indeed she did not trouble
herself much about such trifles.  But I hope you have seen other
things in Russia less ridiculous than these statues?"

I entertained the sovereign for more than an hour with my remarks on
the things of note I had seen in St. Petersburg.  The conversation
happened to turn on the King of Prussia, and I sang his praises; but
I censured his terrible habit of always interrupting the person whom
he was addressing.  Catherine smiled and asked me to tell her about
the conversation I had had with this monarch, and I did so to the
best of my ability.  She was then kind enough to say that she had
never seen me at the Courtag, which was a vocal and instrumental
concert given at the palace, and open to all.  I told her that I had
only attended once, as I was so unfortunate as not to have a taste
for music.  At this she turned to Panin, and said smilingly that she
knew someone else who had the same misfortune.  If the reader
remembers what I heard her say about music as she was leaving the
opera, he will pronounce my speech to have been a very courtier-like
one, and I confess it was; but who can resist making such speeches to
a monarch, and above all, a monarch in petticoats?

The czarina turned from me to speak to M. Bezkoi, who had just come
up, and as M. Panin left the garden I did so too, delighted with the
honour I had had.

The empress, who was a woman of moderate height and yet of a majestic
appearance, thoroughly understood the art of making herself loved.
She was not beautiful, but yet she was sure of pleasing by her
geniality and her wit, and also by that exquisite tact which made one
forget the awfulness of the sovereign in the gentleness of the woman.
A few days after, Count Partin told me that the empress had twice
asked after me, and that this was a sure sign I had pleased her.  He
advised me to look out for another opportunity of meeting her, and
said that for the future she would always tell me to approach
whenever she saw me, and that if I wanted some employment she might
possible do something for me.

Though I did not know what employ I could ask for in that
disagreeable country, I was glad to hear that I could have easy
access to the Court.  With that idea I walked in the garden every
day, and here follows my second conversation with the empress
She saw me at a distance and sent an officer to fetch me into her
presence.  As everybody was talking of the tournament, which had to
be postponed on account of the bad weather, she asked me if this kind
of entertainment could be given at Venice.  I told her some amusing
stories on the subject of shows and spectacles, and in this relation
I remarked that the Venetian climate was more pleasant than the
Russian, for at Venice fine days were the rule, while at St.
Petersburg they were the exception, though the year is younger there
than anywhere else.

"Yes," she said, "in your country it is eleven days older."

"Would it not be worthy of your majesty to put Russia on an equality
with the rest of the world in this respect, by adopting the Gregorian
calendar?  All the Protestants have done so, and England, who adopted
it fourteen years ago, has already gained several millions.  All
Europe is astonished that the old style should be suffered to exist
in a country where the sovereign is the head of the Church, and whose
capital contains an academy of science.  It is thought that Peter the
Great, who made the year begin in January, would have also abolished
the old style if he had not been afraid of offending England, which
then kept trade and commerce alive throughout your vast empire."
"You know," she replied, with a sly smile, "that Peter the Great was
not exactly a learned man."

"He was more than a man of learning, the immortal Peter was a genius
of the first order.  Instinct supplied the place of science with him;
his judgment was always in the right.  His vast genius, his firm
resolve, prevented him from making mistakes, and helped him to
destroy all those abuses which threatened to oppose his great
designs."

Her majesty seemed to have heard me with great interest, and was
about to reply when she noticed two ladies whom she summoned to her
presence.  To me she said,--

"I shall be delighted to reply to you at another time," and then
turned towards the ladies.

The time came in eight or ten days, when I was beginning to think she
had had enough of me, for she had seen me without summoning me to
speak to her.

She began by saying what I desired should be done was done already.
"All the letters sent to foreign countries and all the important
State records are marked with both dates."

"But I must point out to your majesty that by the end of the century
the difference will be of twelve days, not eleven."

"Not at all; we have seen to that.  The last year of this century
will not be counted as a leap year.  It is fortunate that the
difference is one of eleven days, for as that is the number which is
added every year to the epact our epacts are almost the same.  As to
the celebration of Easter, that is a different question.  Your
equinox is on March the 21st, ours on the 10th, and the astronomers
say we are both wrong; sometimes it is we who are wrong and sometimes
you, as the equinox varies.  You know you are not even in agreement
with the Jews, whose calculation is said to be perfectly accurate;
and, in fine, this difference in the time of celebrating Easter does
not disturb in any way public order or the progress of the
Government."

"Your majesty's words fill me with admiration, but the Festival of
Christmas----"

"I suppose you are going to say that we do not celebrate Christmas in
the winter solstice as should properly be done.  We know it, but it
seems to me a matter of no account.  I would rather bear with this
small mistake than grievously afflict vast numbers of my subjects by
depriving them of their birthdays.  If I did so, there would be no
open complaints uttered, as that is not the fashion in Russia; but
they would say in secret that I was an Atheist, and that I disputed
the infallibility of the Council of Nice.  You may think such
complaints matter for laughter, but I do not, for I have much more
agreeable motives for amusement."

The czarina was delighted to mark my surprise.  I did not doubt for a
moment that she had made a special study of the whole subject.
M. Alsuwieff told me, a few days after, that she had very possibly
read a little pamphlet on the subject, the statements of which
exactly coincided with her own.  He took care to add, however, that
it was very possible her highness was profoundly learned on the
matter, but this was merely a courtier's phrase.

What she said was spoken modestly and energetically, and her good
humour and pleasant smile remained unmoved throughout.  She exercised
a constant self-control over herself, and herein appeared the
greatness of her character, for nothing is more difficult.  Her
demeanour, so different from that of the Prussian king, shewed her to
be the greater sovereign of the two; her frank geniality always gave
her the advantage, while the short, curt manners of the king often
exposed him to being made a dupe.  In an examination of the life of
Frederick the Great, one cannot help paying a deserved tribute to his
courage, but at the same time one feels that if it had not been for
repeated turns of good fortune he must have succumbed, whereas
Catherine was little indebted to the favours of the blind deity.  She
succeeded in enterprises which, before her time, would have been
pronounced impossibilities, and it seemed her aim to make men look
upon her achievements as of small account.

I read in one of our modern journals, those monuments of editorial
self-conceit, that Catherine the Great died happily as she had lived.
Everybody knows that she died suddenly on her close stool.  By
calling such a death happy, the journalist hints that it is the death
he himself would wish for.  Everyone to his taste, and we can only
hope that the editor may obtain his wish; but who told this silly
fellow that Catherine desired such a death?  If he regards such a
wish as natural to a person of her profound genius I would ask who
told him that men of genius consider a sudden death to be a happy
one?  Is it because that is his opinion, and are we to conclude that
he is therefore person of genius?  To come to the truth we should
have to interrogate the late empress, and ask her some such question
as:

"Are you well pleased to have died suddenly?"

She would probably reply:

"What a foolish question!  Such might be the wish of one driven to
despair, or of someone suffering from a long and grievous malady.
Such was not my position, for I enjoyed the blessings of happiness
and good health; no worse fate could have happened to me.  My sudden
death prevented me from concluding several designs which I might have
brought to a successful issue if God had granted me the warning of a,
slight illness.  But it was not so; I had to set out on the long
journey at a moment's notice, without the time to make any
preparations.  Is my death any the happier from my not foreseeing it?
Do you think me such a coward as to dread the approach of what is
common to all?  I tell you that I should have accounted myself happy
if I had had a respite of but a day.  Then I should not complain of
the Divine justice."

"Does your highness accuse God of injustice, then?"

"What boots it, since I am a lost soul?  Do you expect the damned to
acknowledge the justice of the decree which has consigned them to
eternal woe?"

"No doubt it is a difficult matter, but I should have thought that a
sense of the justice of your doom would have mitigated the pains of
it."

"Perhaps so, but a damned soul must be without consolation for ever."

"In spite of that there are some philosophers who call you happy in
your death by virtue of its suddenness."

"Not philosophers, but fools, for in its suddenness was the pain and
woe."

"Well said; but may I ask your highness if you admit the possibility
of a happy eternity after an unhappy death, or of an unhappy doom
after a happy death?"

"Such suppositions are inconceivable.  The happiness of futurity lies
in the ecstasy of the soul in feeling freed from the trammels of
matter, and unhappiness is the doom of a soul which was full of
remorse at the moment it left the body.  But enough, for my
punishment forbids my farther speech."

"Tell me, at least, what is the nature of your punishment?"

"An everlasting weariness.  Farewell."

After this long and fanciful digression the reader will no doubt be
obliged by my returning to this world.

Count Panin told me that in a few days the empress would leave for
her country house, and I determined to have an interview with her,
foreseeing that it would be for the last time.

I had been in the garden for a few minutes when heavy rain began to
fall, and I was going to leave, when the empress summoned me into an
apartment on the ground floor of the palace, where she was walking up
and down with Gregorovitch and a maid of honour.

"I had forgotten to ask you," she said, graciously, "if you believe
the new calculation of the calendar to be exempt from error?"

"No, your majesty; but the error is so minute that it will not
produce any sensible effect for the space of nine or ten thousand
years."

"I thought so; and in my opinion Pope Gregory should not have
acknowledged any mistake at all.  The Pope, however, had much less
difficulty in carrying out his reform than I should have with my
subjects, who are too fond of their ancient usages and customs."
"Nevertheless, I am sure your majesty would meet with obedience."
"No doubt, but imagine the grief of my clergy in not being able to
celebrate the numerous saints' days, which would fall on the eleven
days to be suppressed.  You have only one saint for each day, but we
have a dozen at least.  I may remark also that all ancient states and
kingdoms are attached to their ancient laws.  I have heard that your
Republic of Venice begins the year in March, and that seems to me, as
it were, a monument and memorial of its antiquity--and indeed the
year begins more naturally in March than in January--but does not
this usage cause some confusion?"

"None at all, your majesty.  The letters M V, which we adjoin to all
dates in January and February, render all mistakes impossible."

"Venice is also noteworthy for its peculiar system of heraldry, by
the amusing form under which it portrays its patron saint, and by the
five Latin words with which the Evangelist is invoked, in which, as I
am told, there is a grammatical blunder which has become respectable
by its long standing.  But is it true that you do not distinguish
between the day and night hours?"

"It is, your majesty, and what is more we reckon the day from the
beginning of the night."

"Such is the force of custom, which makes us admire what other
nations think ridiculous.  You see no inconvenience in your division
of the day, which strikes me as most inconvenient."

"You would only have to look at your watch, and you would not need to
listen for the cannon shot which announces the close of day."

"Yes, but for this one advantage you have over us, we have two over
you.  We know that at twelve o'clock it is either mid-day or
midnight."

The czarina spoke to me about the fondness of the Venetians for games
of chance, and asked if the Genoa Lottery had been established there.
"I have been asked," she added, "to allow the lottery to be
established in my own dominions; but I should never permit it except
on the condition that no stake should be below a rouble, and then the
poor people would not be able to risk their money in it."

I replied to this discreet observation with a profound inclination of
the head, and thus ended my last interview with the famous empress
who reigned thirty-five years without committing a single mistake of
any importance.  The historian will always place her amongst great
sovereigns, though the moralist will always consider her, and
rightly, as one of the most notable of dissolute women.

A few days before I left I gave an entertainment to my friends at
Catherinhoff, winding up with a fine display of fireworks, a present
from my friend Melissino.  My supper for thirty was exquisite, and my
ball a brilliant one.  In spite of the tenuity of my purse I felt
obliged to give my friends this mark of my gratitude for the kindness
they had lavished on me.

I left Russia with the actress Valville, and I must here tell the
reader how I came to make her acquaintance.

I happened to go to the French play, and to find myself seated next
to an extremely pretty lady who was unknown to me.  I occasionally
addressed an observation to her referring to the play or actors, and
I was immensely delighted with her spirited answers.  Her expression
charmed me, and I took the liberty of asking her if she were a
Russian.

"No, thank God!" she replied, "I am a Parisian, and an actress by
occupation.  My name is Valville; but I don't wonder I am unknown to
you, for I have been only a month here, and have played but once."

"How is that?"

"Because I was so unfortunate as to fail to win the czarina's favour.
However, as I was engaged for a year, she has kindly ordered that my
salary of a hundred roubles shall be paid monthly.  At the end of the
year I shall get my passport and go."

"I am sure the empress thinks she is doing you a favour in paying you
for nothing."

"Very likely; but she does not remember that I am forgetting how to
act all this time."

"You ought to tell her that."

"I only wish she would give me an audience."

"That is unnecessary.  Of course, you have a lover."

"No, I haven't."

"It's incredible to me!"

"They say the incredible often happens."

"I am very glad to hear it myself."

I took her address, and sent her the following note the next day:

"Madam,--I should like to begin an intrigue with you.  You have
inspired me with feelings that will make me unhappy unless you
reciprocate them.  I beg to take the liberty of asking myself to sup
with you, but please tell me how much it will cost me.  I am obliged
to leave for Warsaw in the course of a month, and I shall be happy to
offer you a place in my travelling carriage.  I shall be able to get
you a passport.  The bearer of this has orders to wait, and I hope
your answer will be as plainly worded as my question."

In two hours I received this reply:

"Sir,--As I have the knack of putting an end to an intrigue when it
has ceased to amuse me, I have no hesitation in accepting your
proposal.  As to the sentiments with which you say I have inspired
you, I will do my best to share them, and to make you happy.  Your
supper shall be ready, and later on we will settle the price of the
dessert.  I shall be delighted to accept the place in your carriage
if you can obtain my expenses to Paris as well as my passport.  And
finally, I hope you will find my plain speaking on a match with
yours.  Good bye, till the evening."

I found my new friend in a comfortable lodging, and we accosted each
other as if we had been old acquaintances.

"I shall be delighted to travel with you," said she, "but I don't
think you will be able to get my passport."

"I have no doubt as to my success," I replied, "if you will present
to the empress the petition I shall draft for you."

"I will surely do so," said she, giving me writing materials.

I wrote out the following petition,--

"Your Majesty,--I venture to remind your highness that my enforced
idleness is making me forget my art, which I have not yet learnt
thoroughly.  Your majesty's generosity is therefore doing me an
injury, and your majesty would do me a great benefit in giving me
permission to leave St. Petersburg."

"Nothing more than that?"

"Not a word."

"You say nothing about the passport, and nothing about the journey-
money.  I am not a rich woman."

"Do you only present this petition; and, unless I am very much
mistaken, you will have, not only your journey-money, but also your
year's salary."

"Oh, that would be too much!"

"Not at all.  You do not know Catherine, but I do.  Have this copied,
and present it in person."

"I will copy it out myself, for I can write a good enough hand.
Indeed, it almost seems as if I had composed it; it is exactly my
style.  I believe you are a better actor than I am, and from this
evening I shall call myself your pupil.  Come, let us have some
supper, that you may give me my first lesson."

After a delicate supper, seasoned by pleasant and witty talk, Madame
Valville granted me all I could desire.  I went downstairs for a
moment to send away my coachman and to instruct him what he was to
say to Zaira, whom I had forewarned that I was going to Cronstadt,
and might not return till the next day.  My coachman was a Ukrainian
on whose fidelity I could rely, but I knew that it would be necessary
for me to be off with the old love before I was on with the new.

Madame Valville was like most young Frenchwomen of her class; she had
charms which she wished to turn to account, and a passable education;
her ambition was to be kept by one man, and the title of mistress was
more pleasing in her ears than that of wife.

In the intervals of four amorous combats she told me enough of her
life for me to divine what it had been.  Clerval, the actor, had been
gathering together a company of actors at Paris, and making her
acquaintance by chance and finding her to be intelligent, he assured
her that she was a born actress, though she had never suspected it.
The idea had dazzled her, and she had signed the agreement.  She
started from Paris with six other actors and actresses, of whom she
was the only one that had never played.

"I thought," she said, "it was like what is done at Paris, where a
girl goes into the chorus or the ballet without having learnt to sing
or dance.  What else could I think, after an actor like Clerval had
assured me I had a talent for acting and had offered me a good
engagement?  All he required of me was that I should learn by heart
and repeat certain passages which I rehearsed in his presence.  He
said I made a capital soubrette, and he certainly could not have been
trying to deceive me, but the fact is he was deceived himself.  A
fortnight after my arrival I made my first appearance, and my
reception was not a flattering one."

"Perhaps you were nervous?"

"Nervous? not in the least.  Clerval said that if I could have put on
the appearance of nervousness the empress, who is kindness itself,
would certainly have encouraged me."

I left her the next morning after I had seen her copy out the
petition.  She wrote a very good hand.

"I shall present it to-day," said she.

I wished her good luck, and arranged to sup with her again on the day
I meant to part with Zaira.

All French girls who sacrifice to Venus are in the same style as the
Valville; they are entirely without passion or love, but they are
pleasant and caressing.  They have only one object; and that is their
own profit.  They make and unmake an intrigue with a smiling face and
without the slightest difficulty.  It is their system, and if it be
not absolutely the best it is certainly the most convenient.

When I got home I found Zaira submissive but sad, which annoyed me
more than anger would have done, for I loved her.  However, it was
time to bring the matter to an end, and to make up my mind to endure
the pain of parting.

Rinaldi, the architect, a man of seventy, but still vigorous and
sensual, was in love with her, and he had hinted to me several times
that he would be only too happy to take her over and to pay double
the sum I had given for her.  My answer had been that I could only
give her to a man she liked, and that I meant to make her a present
of the hundred roubles I had given for her.  Rinaldi did not like
this answer, as he had not very strong hopes of the girl taking a
fancy to him; however, he did not despair.

He happened to call on me on the very morning on which I had
determined to give her up, and as he spoke Russian perfectly he gave
Zaira to understand how much he loved her.  Her answer was that he
must apply to me, as my will was law to her, but that she neither
liked nor disliked anyone else.  The old man could not obtain any
more positive reply and left us with but feeble hopes, but commending
himself to my good offices.

When he had gone, I asked Zaira whether she would not like me to
leave her to the worthy man, who would treat her as his own daughter.

She was just going to reply when I was handed a note from Madame
Valville, asking me to call on her, as she had a piece of news to
give me.  I ordered the carriage immediately, telling Zaira that I
should not be long.

"Very good," she replied, "I will give you a plain answer when you
come back."

I found Madame Valville in a high state of delight.

"Long live the petition!" she exclaimed, as soon as she saw me.
"I waited for the empress to come out of her private chapel.  I
respectfully presented my petition, which she read as she walked
along, and then told me with a kindly smile to wait a moment.  I
waited, and her majesty returned me the petition initialled in her
own hand, and bade me take it to M. Ghelagin.  This gentleman gave me
an excellent reception, and told me that the sovereign hand ordered
him to give me my passport, my salary for a year, and a hundred
ducats for the journey.  The money will be forwarded in a fortnight,
as my name will have to be sent to the Gazette."

Madame Valville was very grateful, and we fixed the day of our
departure.  Three or four days later I sent in my name to the
Gazette.

I had promised Zaira to come back, so telling my new love that I
would come and live with her as soon as I had placed the young
Russian in good hands, I went home, feeling rather curious to hear
Zaira's determination.

After Zaira had supped with me in perfect good humour, she asked if
M. Rinaldi would pay me back the money I had given far her.  I said
he would, and she went on,--

"It seems to me that I am worth more than I was, for I have all your
presents, and I know Italian."

"You are right, dear, but I don't want it to be said that I have made
a profit on you; besides, I intend to make you a present of the
hundred roubles."

"As you are going to make me such a handsome present, why not send me
back to my father's house?  That would be still more generous.  If M.
Rinaldi really loves me, he can come and talk it over with my father.
You have no objection to his paying me whatever sum I like to
mention."

"Not at all.  On the contrary, I shall be very glad to serve your
family, and all the more as Rinaldi is a rich man."

"Very good; you will be always dear to me in my memory.  You shall
take me to my home to-morrow; and now let us go to bed."

Thus it was that I parted with this charming girl, who made me live
soberly all the time I was at St. Petersburg.  Zinowieff told me that
if I had liked to deposit a small sum as security I could have taken
her with me; but I had thought the matter over, and it seemed to me
that as Zaira grew more beautiful and charming I should end by
becoming a perfect slave to her.  Possibly, however, I should not
have looked into matters so closely if I had not been in love with
Madame Valville.

Zaira spent the next morning in gathering together her belongings,
now laughing and now weeping, and every time that she left her
packing to give me a kiss I could not resist weeping myself.  When I
restored her to her father, the whole family fell on their knees
around me.  Alas for poor human nature! thus it is degraded by the
iron heel of oppression.  Zaira looked oddly in the humble cottage,
where one large mattress served for the entire family.

Rinaldi took everything in good part.  He told me that since the
daughter would make no objection he had no fear of the father doing
so.  He went to the house the next day, but he did not get the girl
till I had left St. Petersburg.  He kept her for the remainder of his
days, and behaved very handsomely to her.

After this melancholy separation Madame Valville became my sole
mistress, and we left the Russian capital in the course of a few
weeks.  I took an Armenian merchant into my service; he had lent me a
hundred ducats, and cooked very well in the Eastern style.  I had a
letter from the Polish resident to Prince Augustus Sulkowski, and
another from the English ambassador for Prince Adam Czartoryski.

The day after we left St. Petersburg we stopped at Koporie to dine;
we had taken with us some choice viands and excellent wines.  Two
days later we met the famous chapel-master, Galuppi or Buranelli, who
was on his way to St. Petersburg with two friends and an artiste.  He
did not know me, and was astonished to find a Venetian dinner
awaiting him at the inn, as also to hear a greeting in his mother
tongue.  As soon as I had pronounced my name he embraced me with
exclamations of surprise and joy.

The roads were heavy with rain, so we were a week in getting to Riga,
and when we arrived I was sorry to hear that Prince Charles was not
there.  From Riga, we were four days before getting to Konigsberg,
where Madame Valville, who was expected at Berlin, had to leave me.
I left her my Armenian, to whom she gladly paid the hundred ducats I
owed him.  I saw her again two years later, and shall speak of the
meeting in due time.

We separated like good friends, without any sadness.  We spent the
night at Klein Roop, near Riga, and she offered to give me her
diamonds, her jewels, and all that she possessed.  We were staying
with the Countess Lowenwald, to whom I had a letter from the Princess
Dolgorouki.  This lady had in her house, in the capacity of
governess, the pretty English woman whom I had known as Campioni's
wife.  She told me that her husband was at Warsaw, and that he was
living with Villiers.  She gave me a letter for him, and I promised
to make him send her some money, and I kept my word.  Little Betty
was as charming as ever, but her mother seemed quite jealous of her
and treated her ill.

When I reached Konigsberg I sold my travelling carriage and took a
place in a coach for Warsaw.  We were four in all, and my companions
only spoke German and Polish, so that I had a dreadfully tedious
journey.  At Warsaw I went to live with Villiers, where I hoped to
meet Campioni.

It was not long before I saw him, and found him well in health and in
comfortable quarters.  He kept a dancing school, and had a good many
pupils.  He was delighted to have news of Fanny and his children.  He
sent them some money, but had no thoughts of having them at Warsaw,
as Fanny wished.  He assured me she was not his wife.

He told me that Tomatis, the manager of the comic opera, had made a
fortune, and had in his company a Milanese dancer named Catai, who
enchanted all the town by her charms rather than her talent.  Games
of chance were permitted, but he warned me that Warsaw was full of
card-sharpers.  A Veronese named Giropoldi, who lived with an officer
from Lorrain called Bachelier, held a bank at faro at her house,
where a dancer, who had been the mistress of the famous Afflisio at
Vienna, brought customers.

Major Sadir, whom I have mentioned before, kept another gaming-house,
in company with his mistress, who came from Saxony.  The Baron de St.
Heleine was also in Warsaw, but his principal occupation was to
contract debts which he did not mean to pay.  He also lived in
Villier's house with his pretty and virtuous young wife, who would
have nothing to say to us.  Campioni told me of some other
adventurers, whose names I was very glad to know that I might the
better avoid them.

The day after my arrival I hired a man and a carriage, the latter
being an absolute necessity at Warsaw, where in my time, at all
events, it was impossible to go on foot.  I reached the capital of
Poland at the end of October, 1765.

My first call was on Prince Adam Czartoryski, Lieutenant of Podolia,
for whom I had an introduction.  I found him before a table covered
with papers, surrounded by forty or fifty persons, in an immense
library which he had made into his bedroom.  He was married to a very
pretty woman, but had not yet had a child by her because she was too
thin for his taste.

He read the long letter I gave him, and said in elegant French that
he had a very high opinion of the writer of the letter; but that as
he was very busy just then he hoped I would come to supper with him
if I had nothing better to do.

I drove off to Prince Sulkouski, who had just been appointed
ambassador to the Court of Louis XV.  The prince was the elder of
four brothers and a man of great understanding, but a theorist in the
style of the Abbe St. Pierre.  He read the letter, and said he wanted
to have a long talk with me; but that being obliged to go out he
would be obliged if I would come and dine with him at four o'clock.
I accepted the invitation.

I then went to a merchant named Schempinski, who was to pay me fifty
ducats a month on Papanelopulo's order.  My man told me that there
was a public rehearsal of a new opera at the theatre, and I
accordingly spent three hours there, knowing none and unknown to all.
All the actresses were pretty, but especially the Catai, who did not
know the first elements of dancing.  She was greatly applauded, above
all by Prince Repnin, the Russian ambassador, who seemed a person of
the greatest consequence.

Prince Sulkouski kept me at table for four mortal hours, talking on
every subject except those with which I happened to be acquainted.
His strong points were politics and commerce, and as he found my mind
a mere void on these subjects, he shone all the more, and took quite
a fancy to me, as I believe, because he found me such a capital
listener.

About nine o'clock, having nothing better to do (a favourite phrase
with the Polish noblemen), I went to Prince Adam, who after
pronouncing my name introduced me to the company.  There were present
Monseigneur Krasinski, the Prince-Bishop of Warmia, the Chief
Prothonotary Rzewuski, whom I had known at St. Petersburg, the
Palatin Oginski, General Roniker, and two others whose barbarous
names I have forgotten.  The last person to whom he introduced me was
his wife, with whom I was very pleased.  A few moments after a fine-
looking gentleman came into the room, and everybody stood up.  Prince
Adam pronounced my name, and turning to me said, coolly,--

"That's the king."

This method of introducing a stranger to a sovereign prince was
assuredly not an overwhelming one, but it was nevertheless a
surprise; and I found that an excess of simplicity may be as
confusing as the other extreme.  At first I thought the prince might
be making a fool of me; but I quickly put aside the idea, and stepped
forward and was about to kneel, but his majesty gave me his hand to
kiss with exquisite grace, and as he was about to address me, Prince
Adam shewed him the letter of the English ambassador, who was well
known to the king.  The king read it, still standing, and began to
ask me questions about the Czarina and the Court, appearing to take
great interest in my replies.

When supper was announced the king continued to talk, and led me into
the supper-room, and made me sit down at his right hand.  Everybody
ate heartily except the king, who appeared to have no appetite, and
myself, who had no right to have any appetite, even if I had not
dined well with Prince Sulkouski, for I saw the whole table hushed to
listen to my replies to the king's questions.

After supper the king began to comment very graciously on my answers.
His majesty spoke simply but with great elegance.  As he was leaving
he told me he should always be delighted to see me at his Court, and
Prince Adam said that if I liked to be introduced to his father, I
had only to call at eleven o'clock the next morning.

The King of Poland was of a medium height, but well made.  His face
was not a handsome one, but it was kindly and intelligent.  He was
rather short-sighted, and his features in repose bore a somewhat
melancholy expression; but in speaking, the whole face seemed to
light up.  All he said was seasoned by a pleasant wit.

I was well enough pleased with this interview, and returned to my
inn, where I found Campioni seated amongst several guests of either
sex, and after staying with them for half an hour I went to bed.

At eleven o'clock the next day I was presented to the great Russian
Paladin.  He was in his dressing-gown, surrounded by his gentlemen in
the national costume.  He was standing up and conversing with his
followers in a kindly but grave manner.  As soon as his son Adam
mentioned my name, he unbent and gave me a most kindly yet dignified
welcome.  His manners were not awful, nor did they inspire one with
familiarity, and I thought him likely to be a good judge of
character.  When I told him that I had only gone to Russia to amuse
myself and see good company, he immediately concluded that my aims in
coming to Poland were of the same kind; and he told me that he could
introduce me to a large circle.  He added that he should be glad to
see me to dinner and supper whenever I had no other engagements.

He went behind a screen to complete his toilette, and soon appeared
in the uniform of his regiment, with a fair peruke in the style of
the late King Augustus II.  He made a collective bow to everyone, and
went to see his wife, who was recovering from a disease which would
have proved fatal if it had not been for the skill of Reimann, a
pupil of the great Boerhaave.  The lady came of the now extinct
family of Enoff, whose immense wealth she brought to her husband.
When he married her he abandoned the Maltese Order, of which he had
been a knight.  He won his bride by a duel with pistols on horseback.
The lady had promised that her hand should be the conqueror's
guerdon, and the prince was so fortunate as to kill his rival.  Of
this marriage there issued Prince Adam and a daughter, now a widow,
and known under the name of Lubomirska, but formerly under that of
Strasnikowa, that being the title of the office her husband held in
the royal army.

It was this prince palatine and his brother, the High Chancellor of
Lithuania, who first brought about the Polish troubles.  The two
brothers were discontented with their position at the Court where
Count Bruhl was supreme, and put themselves at the head of the plot
for dethroning the king, and for placing on the throne, under Russian
protection, their young nephew, who had originally gone to St.
Petersburg as an attache at the embassy, and afterwards succeeded in
winning the favour of Catherine, then Grand Duchess, but soon to
become empress.

This young man was Stanislas Poniatowski, son of Constance
Czartoryski and the celebrated Poniatowski, the friend of Charles
III.  As luck would have it, a revolution was unnecessary to place
him on the throne, for the king died in 1763, and gave place to
Prince Poniatowski, who was chosen king on the 6th of September,
1776, under the title of Stanislas Augustus I.  He had reigned two
years at the time of my visit; and I found Warsaw in a state of
gaiety, for a diet was to be held and everyone wished to know how it
was that Catherine had given the Poles a native king.

At dinner-time I went to the paladin's and found three tables, at
each of which there were places for thirty, and this was the usual
number entertained by the prince.  The luxury of the Court paled
before that of the paladin's house.  Prince Adam said to me,

"Chevalier, your place will always be at my father's table."

This was a great honour, and I felt it.  The prince introduced me to
his handsome sister, and to several palatins and starosts.  I did not
fail to call on all these great personages, so in the course of a
fortnight I found myself a welcome guest in all the best houses.

My purse was too lean to allow of my playing or consoling myself with
a theatrical beauty, so I fell back on the library of Monseigneur
Zalewski, the Bishop of Kiowia, for whom I had taken a great liking.
I spent almost all my mornings with him, and it was from this prelate
that I learnt all the intrigues and complots by which the ancient
Polish constitution, of which the bishop was a great admirer, had
been overturned.  Unhappily, his firmness was of no avail, and a few
months after I left Warsaw the Russian tyrants arrested him and he
was exiled to Siberia.

I lived calmly and peaceably, and still look back upon those days
with pleasure.  I spent my afternoons with the paladin playing
tressette an Italian game of which he was very fond, and which I
played well enough for the paladin to like to have me as a partner.

In spite of my sobriety and economy I found myself in debt three
months after my arrival, and I did not know where to turn for help.
The fifty ducats per month, which were sent me from Venice, were
insufficient, for the money I had to spend on my carriage, my
lodging, my servant, and my dress brought me down to the lowest ebb,
and I did not care to appeal to anyone.  But fortune had a surprise
in store for me, and hitherto she had never left me.

Madame Schmit, whom the king for good reasons of his own had
accommodated with apartments in the palace, asked me one evening to
sup with her, telling me that the king would be of the party.  I
accepted the invitation, and I was delighted to find the delightful
Bishop Kraswiski, the Abbe Guigiotti, and two or three other amateurs
of Italian literature.  The king, whose knowledge of literature was
extensive, began to tell anecdotes of classical writers, quoting
manuscript authorities which reduced me to silence, and which were
possibly invented by him.  Everyone talked except myself, and as I
had had no dinner I ate like an ogre, only replying by monosyllables
when politeness obliged me to say something.  The conversation turned
on Horace, and everyone gave his opinion on the great materialist's
philosophy, and the Abbe Guigiotti obliged me to speak by saying that
unless I agreed with him I should not keep silence.

"If you take my silence for consent to your extravagant eulogium of
Horace," I said, "you are mistaken; for in my opinion the 'nec cum
venari volet poemata panges', of which you think so much, is to my
mind a satire devoid of delicacy."

"Satire and delicacy are hard to combine."

"Not for Horace, who succeeded in pleasing the great Augustus, and
rendering him immortal as the protector of learned men.  Indeed other
sovereigns seem to vie with him by taking his name and even by
disguising it."

The king (who had taken the name of Augustus himself) looked grave
and said,--

"What sovereigns have adopted a disguised form of the name Augustus?"

"The first king of Sweden, who called himself Gustavus, which is only
an anagram of Augustus."

"That is a very amusing idea, and worth more than all the tales we
have told.  Where did you find that?"

"In a manuscript at Wolfenbuttel."

The king laughed loudly, though he himself had been citing
manuscripts.  But he returned to the charge and said,--

"Can you cite any passage of Horace (not in manuscript) where he
shews his talent for delicacy and satire?"

"Sir, I could quote several passages, but here is one which seems to
me very good: 'Coyam rege', says the poet, 'sua de paupertate
tacentes, plus quan pocentes ferent."

"True indeed," said the king, with a smile.

Madame Schmit, who did not know Latin, and inherited curiosity from
her mother, and eventually from Eve, asked the bishop what it meant,
and he thus translated it:

"They that speak not of their necessities in the presence of a king,
gain more than they that are ever asking."

The lady remarked that she saw nothing satirical in this.

After this it was my turn to be silent again; but the king began to
talk about Ariosto, and expressed a desire to read it with me.  I
replied with an inclination of the head, and Horace's words: 'Tempora
quoeram'.

Next morning, as I was coming out from mass, the generous and
unfortunate Stanislas Augustus gave me his hand to kiss, and at the
same time slid a roll of money into my hand, saying,--

"Thank no one but Horace, and don't tell anyone about it."

The roll contained two hundred ducats, and I immediately paid off my
debts.  Since then I went almost every morning to the king's closet,
where he was always glad to see his courtiers, but there was no more
said about reading Ariosto.  He knew Italian, but not enough to speak
it, and still less to appreciate the beauties of the great poet.
When I think of this worthy prince, and of the great qualities he
possessed as a man, I cannot understand how he came to commit so many
errors as a king.  Perhaps the least of them all was that he allowed
himself to survive his country.  As he could not find a friend to
kill him, I think he should have killed himself.  But indeed he had
no need to ask a friend to do him this service; he should have
imitated the great Kosciuszko, and entered into life eternal by the
sword of a Russian.

The carnival was a brilliant one.  All Europe seemed to have
assembled at Warsaw to see the happy being whom fortune had so
unexpectedly raised to a throne, but after seeing him all were agreed
that, in his case at all events, the deity had been neither blind nor
foolish.  Perhaps, however, he liked shewing himself rather too much.
I have detected him in some distress on his being informed that there
was such a thing as a stranger in Warsaw who had not seen him.  No
one had any need of an introduction, for his Court was, as all Courts
should be, open to everyone, and when he noticed a strange face he
was the first to speak.

Here I must set down an event which took place towards the end of
January.  It was, in fact, a dream; and, as I think I have confessed
before, superstition had always some hold on me.

I dreamt I was at a banquet, and one of the guests threw a bottle at
my face, that the blood poured forth, that I ran my sword through my
enemy's body, and jumped into a carriage, and rode away.

Prince Charles of Courland came to Warsaw, and asked me to dine with
him at Prince Poninski's, the same that became so notorious, and was
afterwards proscribed and shamefully dishonoured.  His was a
hospitable house, and he was surrounded by his agreeable family.  I
had never called on him, as he was not a 'persona grata' to the king
or his relations.

In the course of the dinner a bottle of champagne burst, and a piece
of broken glass struck me just below the eye.  It cut a vein, and the
blood gushed over my face, over my clothes, and even over the cloth.
Everybody rose, my wound was bound up, the cloth was changed, and the
dinner went on merrily.  I was surprised at the likeness between my
dream and this incident, while I congratulated myself on the happy
difference between them.  However, it all came true after a few
months.

Madame Binetti, whom I had last seen in London, arrived at Warsaw
with her husband and Pic the dancer.  She had a letter of
introduction to the king's brother, who was a general in the Austrian
service, and then resided at Warsaw.  I heard that the day they came,
when I was at supper at the palatin's.  The king was present, and
said he should like to keep them in Warsaw for a week and see them
dance, if a thousand ducats could do it.

I went to see Madame Binetti and to give her the good news the next
morning.  She was very much surprised to meet me in Warsaw, and still
more so at the news I gave her.  She called Pic who seemed undecided,
but as we were talking it over, Prince Poniatowski came in to
acquaint them with his majesty's wishes, and the offer was accepted.
In three days Pic arranged a ballet; the costumes, the scenery, the
music, the dancers--all were ready, and Tomatis put it on handsomely
to please his generous master.  The couple gave such satisfaction
that they were engaged for a year.  The Catai was furious, as Madame
Binetti threw her completely into the shade, and, worse still, drew
away her lovers.  Tomatis, who was under the Catai's influence, made
things so unpleasant for Madame Binetti that the two dancers became
deadly enemies.

In ten or twelve days Madame Binetti was settled it a well-furnished
house; her plate was simple but good, her cellar full of excellent
wine, her cook an artist and her adorers numerous, amongst them being
Moszciuski and Branicki, the king's friends.

The pit was divided into two parties, for the Catai was resolved to
make a stand against the new comer, though her talents were not to be
compared to Madame Binetti's.  She danced in the first ballet, and
her rival in the second.  Those who applauded the first greeted that
second in dead silence, and vice versa.  I had great obligations
towards Madame Binetti, but my duty also drew me towards the Catai,
who numbered in her party all the Czartoryskis and their following,
Prince Lubomirski, and other powerful nobles.  It was plain that I
could not desert to Madame Binetti without earning the contempt of
the other party.

Madame Binetti reproached me bitterly, and I laid the case plainly
before her.  She agreed that I could not do otherwise, but begged me
to stay away from the theatre in future, telling me that she had got
a rod in pickle for Tomatis which would make him repent of his
impertinence.  She called me her oldest friend; and indeed I was very
fond of her, and cared nothing for the Catai despite her prettiness.

Xavier Branicki, the royal Postoli, Knight of the White Eagle,
Colonel of Uhlans, the king's friend, was the chief adorer of Madame
Binetti.  The lady probably confided her displeasure to him, and
begged him to take vengeance on the manager, who had committed so
many offences against her.  Count Branicki in his turn probably
promised to avenge her quarrel, and, if no opportunity of doing so
arose, to create an opportunity.  At least, this is the way in which
affairs of this kind are usually managed, and I can find no better
explanation for what happened.  Nevertheless, the way in which the
Pole took vengeance was very original and extraordinary.

On the 20th of February Branicki went to the opera, and, contrary to
his custom, went to the Catai's dressing-room, and began to pay his
court to the actress, Tomatis being present.  Both he and the actress
concluded that Branicki had had a quarrel with her rival, and though
she did not much care to place him in the number of her adorers, she
yet gave him a good reception, for she knew it would be dangerous to
despise his suit openly.

When the Catai had completed her toilet, the gallant postoli offered.
her his arm to take her to her carriage, which was at the door.
Tomatis followed, and I too was there, awaiting my carriage.  Madame
Catai came down, the carriage-door was opened, she stepped in, and
Branicki got in after her, telling the astonished Tomatis to follow
them in the other carriage.  Tomatis replied that he meant to ride in
his own carriage, and begged the colonel to get out.  Branicki paid
no attention, and told the coachman to drive on.  Tornatis forbade
him to stir, and the man, of course, obeyed his master.  The gallant
postcili was therefore obliged to get down, but he bade his hussar
give Tomatis a box on the ear, and this order was so promptly and
vigorously obeyed that the unfortunate man was on the ground before
he had time to recollect that he had a sword.  He got up eventually
and drove off, but he could eat no supper, no doubt because he had a
blow to digest.  I was to have supped with him, but after this scene
I had really not the face to go.  I went home in a melancholy and
reflective mood, wondering whether the whole had been concerted; but
I concluded that this was impossible, as neither Branicki nor Binetti
could have foreseen the impoliteness and cowardice of Tomatis.

In the next chapter the reader will see how tragically the matter
ended.




CHAPTER XXII

My Duel with Branicki--My Journey to Leopol and Return to Warsaw
--I Receive the Order to Leave--My Departure with the Unknown One

On reflection I concluded that Branicki had not done an ungentlemanly
thing in getting into Tomatis's carriage; he had merely behaved with
impetuosity, as if he were the Catai's lover.  It also appeared to me
that, considering the affront he had received from the jealous
Italian, the box on the ear was a very moderate form of vengeance.
A blow is bad, of course, but not so bad as death; and Branicki might
very well have run his sword through the manager's body.  Certainly,
if Branicki had killed him he would have been stigmatised as an
assassin, for though Tomatis had a sword the Polish officer's
servants would never have allowed him to draw it, nevertheless I
could not help thinking that Tomatis should have tried to take the
servant's life, even at the risk of his own.  He wanted no more
courage for that than in ordering the king's favourite to come out of
the carriage.  He might have foreseen that the Polish noble would be
stung to the quick, and would surely attempt to take speedy
vengeance.

The next day the encounter was the subject of all conversations.
Tomatis remained indoors for a week, calling for vengeance in vain.
The king told him he could do nothing for him, as Branicki maintained
he had only given insult for insult.  I saw Tomatis, who told me in
confidence that he could easily take vengeance, but that it would
cost him too dear.  He had spent forty thousand ducats on the two
ballets, and if he had avenged himself he would have lost it nearly
all, as he would be obliged to leave the kingdom.  The only
consolation he had was that his great friends were kinder to him than
ever, and the king himself honoured him with peculiar attention.
Madame Binetti was triumphant.  When I saw her she condoled with me
ironically on the mishap that had befallen my friend.  She wearied
me; but I could not guess that Branicki had only acted at her
instigation, and still less that she had a grudge against me.
Indeed, if I had known it, I should only have laughed at her, for I
had nothing to dread from her bravo's dagger.  I had never seen him
nor spoken to him; he could have no opportunity for attacking me.  He
was never with the king in the morning and never went to the
palatin's to supper, being an unpopular character with the Polish
nobility.  This Branicki was said to have been originally a Cossack,
Branecki by name.  He became the king's favorite and assumed the name
of Branicki, pretending to be of the same family as the illustrious
marshal of that name who was still alive; but he, far from
recognizing the pretender, ordered his shield to be broken up and
buried with him as the last of the race.  However that may be,
Branicki was the tool of the Russian party, the determined enemy of
those who withstood Catherine's design of Russianising the ancient
Polish constitution.  The king liked him out of habit, and because he
had peculiar obligations to him.

The life I lived was really exemplary.  I indulged neither in love
affairs nor gaming.  I worked for the king, hoping to become his
secretary.  I paid my court to the princess-palatine, who liked my
company, and I played tressette with the palatin himself.

On the 4th of March, St. Casimir's Eve, there was a banquet at Court
to which I had the honour to be invited.  Casimir was the name of the
king's eldest brother, who held the office of grand chamberlain.
After dinner the king asked me if I intended going to the theatre,
where a Polish play was to be given for the first time.  Everybody
was interested in this novelty, but it was a matter of indifference
to me as I did not understand the language, and I told the king as
much.

"Never mind," said he, "come in my box."

This was too flattering an invitation to be refused, so I obeyed the
royal command and stood behind the king's chair.  After the second
act a ballet was given, and the dancing of Madame Caracci, a
Piedmontese, so pleased his majesty that he went to the unusual pains
of clapping her.

I only knew the dancer by sight, for I had never spoken to her.  She
had some talents.  Her principal admirer was Count Poninski, who was
always reproaching me when I dined with him for visiting the other
dancers to the exclusion of Madame Caracci.  I thought of his
reproach at the time, and determined to pay her a visit after the
ballet to congratulate her on her performance and the king's
applause.  On my way I passed by Madame Binetti's dressing-room, and
seeing the door open I stayed a moment.  Count Branicki came up, and
I left with a bow and passed on to Madame Caracci's dressing-room.
She was astonished to see me, and began with kindly reproaches for my
neglect; to which I replied with compliments, and then giving her a
kiss I promised to come and see her.

Just as I embraced her who should enter but Branicki, whom I had left
a moment before with Madame Binetti.  He had clearly followed me in
the hopes of picking a quarrel.  He was accompanied by Bininski, his
lieutenant-colonel.  As soon as he appeared, politeness made me stand
up and turn to go, but he stopped me.

"It seems to me I have come at a bad time; it looks as if you loved
this lady."

"Certainly, my lord; does not your excellency consider her as worthy
of love?"

"Quite so; but as it happens I love her too, and I am not the man to
bear any rivals."

"As I know that, I shall love her no more."

"Then you give her up?"

"With all my heart; for everyone must yield to such a noble as you
are."

"Very good; but I call a man that yields a coward."

"Isn't that rather a strong expression?"

As I uttered these words I looked proudly at him and touched the hilt
of my sword.  Three or four officers were present and witnessed what
passed.

I had hardly gone four paces from the dressing-room when I heard
myself called "Venetian coward."  In spite of my rage I restrained
myself, and turned back saying, coolly and firmly, that perhaps a
Venetian coward might kill a brave Pole outside the theatre; and
without awaiting a reply I left the building by the chief staircase.

I waited vainly outside the theatre for a quarter of an hour with my
sword in my hand, for I was not afraid of losing forty thousand
ducats like Tomatis.  At last, half perishing with cold, I called my
carriage and drove to the palatin's, where the king was to sup.

The cold and loneliness began to cool my brain, and I congratulated
myself on my self-restraint in not drawing my sword in the actress's
dressing-room; and I felt glad that Branicki had not followed me down
the stairs, for his friend Bininski had a sabre, and I should probably
have been assassinated.

Although the Poles are polite enough, there is still a good deal of
the old leaven in them.  They are still Dacians and Samaritans at
dinner, in war, and in friendship, as they call it, but which is
often a burden hardly to be borne.  They can never understand that a
man may be sufficient company for himself, and that it is not right
to descend on him in a troop and ask him to give them dinner.

I made up my mind that Madame Binetti had excited Branicki to follow
me, and possibly to treat me as he had treated Tomatis.  I had not
received a blow certainly, but I had been called a coward.  I had no
choice but to demand satisfaction, but I also determined to be
studiously moderate throughout.  In this frame of mind I got down at
the palatin's, resolved to tell the whole story to the king, leaving
to his majesty the task of compelling his favourite to give me
satisfaction.

As soon as the palatin saw me, he reproached me in a friendly manner
for keeping him waiting, and we sat down to tressette.  I was his
partner, and committed several blunders.  When it came to losing a
second game he said,--

"Where is your head to-night?"

"My lord, it is four leagues away."

"A respectable man ought to have his head in the game, and not at a
distance of four leagues."

With these words the prince threw down his cards and began to walk up
and down the room.  I was rather startled, but I got up and stood by
the fire, waiting for the king.  But after I had waited thus for half
an hour a chamberlain came from the palace, and announced that his
majesty could not do himself the honour of supping with my lord that
night.

This was a blow for me, but I concealed my disappointment.  Supper
was served, and I sat down as usual at the left hand of the palatin,
who was annoyed with me, and chewed it.  We were eighteen at table,
and for once I had no appetite.  About the middle of the supper
Prince Gaspard Lubomirski came in, and chanced to sit down opposite
me.  As soon as he saw me he condoled with me in a loud voice for
what had happened.

"I am sorry for you," said he, "but Branicki was drunk, and you
really shouldn't count what he said as an insult."

"What has happened?" became at once the general question.  I held my
tongue, and when they asked Lubomirski he replied that as I kept
silence it was his duty to do the same.

Thereupon the palatin, speaking in his friendliest manner, said to
me,--

"What has taken place between you and Branicki?"

"I will tell you the whole story, my lord, in private after supper."

The conversation became indifferent, and after the meal was over the
palatin took up his stand by the small door by which he was
accustomed to leave the room, and there I told him the whole story.
He sighed, condoled with me, and added,--

"You had good reasons for being absent-minded at cards."

"May I presume to ask your excellency's advice?"

"I never give advice in these affairs, in which you must do every-
thing or nothing."

The palatin shook me by the hand, and I went home and slept for six
hours.  As soon as I awoke I sat up in bed, and my first thought was
everything or nothing.  I soon rejected the latter alternative, and I
saw that I must demand a duel to the death.  If Branicki refused to
fight I should be compelled to kill him, even if I were to lose my
head for it.

Such was my determination; to write to him proposing a duel at four
leagues from Warsaw, this being the limit of the starostia, in which
duelling was forbidden on pain of death.  I Wrote as follows, for I
have kept the rough draft of the letter to this day:

"WARSAW,

"March 5th, 1766.  5 A.M.

"My Lord,--Yesterday evening your excellency insulted me with a light
heart, without my having given you any cause or reason for doing so.
This seems to indicate that you hate me, and would gladly efface me
from the land of the living.  I both can and will oblige you in this
matter.  Be kind enough, therefore, to drive me in your carriage to a
place where my death will not subject your lordship to the vengeance
of the law, in case you obtain the victory, and where I shall enjoy
the same advantage if God give me grace to kill your lordship.  I
should not make this proposal unless I believe your lordship to be of
a noble disposition.

"I have the honour to be, etc."

I sent this letter an hour before day-break to Branicki's lodging in
the palace.  My messenger had orders to give the letter into the
count's own hands, to wait for him to rise, and also for an answer.

In half an hour I received the following answer:

"Sir,--I accept your proposal, and shall be glad if you will have the
kindness to inform me when I shall have the honour of seeing you.

"I remain, sir, etc."

I answered this immediately, informing him I would call on him the
next day, at six o'clock in the morning.

Shortly after, I received a second letter, in which he said that I
might choose the arms and place, but that our differences must be
settled in the course of the day.

I sent him the measure of my sword, which was thirty-two inches long,
telling him he might choose any place beyond the ban.  In reply, I
had the following:

"Sir,--You will greatly oblige me by coming now.  I have sent my
carriage.

"I have the honour to be, etc."

I replied that I had business all the day, and that as I had made up
my mind not to call upon him, except for the purpose of fighting, I
begged him not to be offended if I took the liberty of sending back
his carriage.

An hour later Branicki called in person, leaving his suite at the
door.  He came into the room, requested some gentlemen who were
talking with me to leave us alone, locked the door after them, and
then sat down on my bed.  I did not understand what all this meant so
I took up my pistols.

"Don't be afraid," said he, "I am not come to assassinate you, but
merely to say that I accept your proposal, on condition only that the
duel shall take place to-day.  If not, never!"

"It is out of the question.  I have letters to write, and some
business to do for the king."

"That will do afterwards.  In all probability you will not fall, and
if you do I am sure the king will forgive you.  Besides, a dead man
need fear no reproaches."

"I want to make my will."

"Come, come, you needn't be afraid of dying; it will be time enough
for you to make your will in fifty years."

"But why should your excellency not wait till tomorrow?"

"I don't want to be caught."

"You have nothing of the kind to fear from me."

"I daresay, but unless we make haste the king will have us both
arrested."

"How can he, unless you have told him about our quarrel?"

"Ah, you don't understand!  Well, I am quite willing to give you
satisfaction, but it must be to-day or never."

"Very good.  This duel is too dear to my heart for me to leave you
any pretext for avoiding it.  Call for me after dinner, for I shall
want all my strength."

"Certainly.  For my part I like a good supper after, better than a
good dinner before."

"Everyone to his taste."

"True.  By the way, why did you send me the length of your sword?  I
intend to fight with pistols, for I never use swords with unknown
persons."

"What do you mean?  I beg of you to refrain from insulting me in my
own house.  I do not intend to fight with pistols, and you cannot
compel me to do so, for I have your letter giving me the choice of
weapons."

"Strictly speaking, no doubt you are in the right; but I am sure you
are too polite not to give way, when I assure you that you will lay
me under a great obligation by doing so.  Very often the first shot
is a miss, and if that is the case with both of us, I promise to
fight with swords as long as you like.  Will you oblige me in the
matter?"

"Yes, for I like your way of asking, though, in my opinion, a pistol
duel is a barbarous affair.  I accept, but on the following
conditions: You must bring two pistols, charge them in my presence,
and give me the choice.  If the first shot is a miss, we will fight
with swords till the first blood or to the death, whichever you
prefer.  Call for me at three o'clock, and choose some place where we
shall be secure from the law."

"Very good.  You are a good fellow, allow me to embrace you.  Give me
your word of honour not to say a word about it to anyone, for if you
did we should be arrested immediately."

"You need not be afraid of my talking; the project is too dear to
me."

"Good.  Farewell till three o'clock."

As soon as the brave braggart had left me, I placed the papers I was
doing for the king apart, and went to Campioni, in whom I had great
confidence.

"Take this packet to the king," I said, "if I happen to be killed.
You may guess, perhaps, what is going to happen, but do not say a
word to anyone, or you will have me for your bitterest enemy, as it
would mean loss of honour to me."

"I understand.  You may reckon on my discretion, and I hope the
affair may be ended honourably and prosperously for you.  But take a
piece of friendly advice--don't spare your opponent, were it the king
himself, for it might cost you your life.  I know that by experience."

"I will not forget.  Farewell."

We kissed each other, and I ordered an excellent dinner, for I had no
mind to be sent to Pluto fasting.  Campioni came in to dinner at one
o'clock, and at dessert I had a visit from two young counts, with
their tutor, Bertrand, a kindly Swiss.  They were witnesses to my
cheerfulness and the excellent appetite with which I ate.  At half-
past two I dismissed my company, and stood at the window to be ready
to go down directly Branicki's carriage appeared.  He drove up in a
travelling carriage and six; two grooms, leading saddle-horses, went
in front, followed by his two aide-de-camps and two hussars.  Behind
his carriage stood four servants.  I hastened to descend, and found
my enemy was accompanied by a lieutenant-general and an armed
footman.  The door was opened, the general gave me his place, and I
ordered my servants not to follow me but to await my orders at the
house.

"You might want them," said Branicki; "they had better come along."

"If I had as many as you, I would certainly agree to your
proposition; but as it is I shall do still better without any at all.
If need be, your excellency will see that I am tended by your own
servants."

He gave me his hand, and assured me they should wait on me before
himself.

I sat down, and we went off.

It would have been absurd if I had asked where we were going, so I
held my tongue, for at such moments a man should take heed to his
words.  Branicki was silent, and I thought the best thing I could do
would be to engage him in a trivial conversation.

"Does your excellency intend spending the spring at Warsaw?"

"I had thought of doing so, but you may possibly send me to pass the
spring somewhere else."

"Oh, I hope not!"

"Have you seen any military service?"

"Yes; but may I ask why your excellency asks me the question, for--"

"I had no particular reason; it was only for the sake of saying
something."

We had driven about half an hour when the carriage stopped at the
door of a large garden.  We got down and, following the postoli,
reached a green arbour which, by the way, was not at all green on
that 5th of March.  In it was a stone table on which the footman
placed two pistols, a foot and half long, with a powder flask and
scales.  He weighed the powder, loaded them equally, and laid them
down crosswise on the table.

This done, Branicki said boldly,

"Choose your weapon, sir."

At this the general called out,

"Is this a duel, sir?"

"Yes."

"You cannot fight here; you are within the ban."

"No matter."

"It does matter; and I, at all events, refuse to be a witness.  I am
on guard at the castle, and you have taken me by surprise."

"Be quiet; I will answer for everything.  I owe this gentleman
satisfaction, and I mean to give it him here."

"M. Casanova," said the general, "you cannot fight here."

"Then why have I been brought here?  I shall defend myself wherever I
am attacked."

"Lay the whole matter before the king, and you shall have my voice in
your favour."

"I am quite willing to do so, general, if his excellency will say
that he regrets what passed between us last night."

Branicki looked fiercely at me, and said wrathfully that he had come
to fight and not to parley.

"General," said I, "you can bear witness that I have done all in my
power to avoid this duel."

The general went away with his head between his hands, and throwing
off my cloak I took the first pistol that came to my hand.  Branicki
took the other, and said that he would guarantee upon his honour that
my weapon was a good one.

"I am going to try its goodness on your head," I answered.

He turned pale at this, threw his sword to one of his servants, and
bared his throat, and I was obliged, to my sorrow, to follow his
example, for my sword was the only weapon I had, with the exception
of the pistol.  I bared my chest also, and stepped back five or six
paces, and he did the same.

As soon as we had taken up our positions I took off my hat with my
left hand, and begged him to fire first.

Instead of doing so immediately he lost two or three seconds in
sighting, aiming, and covering his head by raising the weapon before
it.  I was not in a position to let him kill me at his ease, so I
suddenly aimed and fired on him just as he fired on me.  That I did
so is evident, as all the witnesses were unanimous in saying that
they only heard one report.  I felt I was wounded in my left hand,
and so put it into my pocket, and I ran towards my enemy who had
fallen.  All of a sudden, as I knelt beside him, three bare swords
were flourished over my head, and three noble assassins prepared to
cut me down beside their master.  Fortunately, Branicki had not lost
consciousness or the power of speaking, and he cried out in a voice
of thunder,--

"Scoundrels! have some respect for a man of honour."

This seemed to petrify them.  I put my right hand under the pistoli's
armpit, while the general helped him on the other side, and thus we
took him to the inn, which happened to be near at hand.

Branicki stooped as he walked, and gazed at me curiously, apparently
wondering where all the blood on my clothes came from.

When we got to the inn, Branicki laid himself down in an arm-chair.
We unbuttoned his clothes and lifted up his shirt, and he could see
himself that he was dangerously wounded.  My ball had entered his
body by the seventh rib on the right hand, and had gone out by the
second false rib on the left.  The two wounds were ten inches apart,
and the case was of an alarming nature, as the intestines must have
been pierced.  Branicki spoke to me in a weak voice,--

"You have killed me, so make haste away, as you are in danger of the
gibbet.  The duel was fought in the ban, and I am a high court
officer, and a Knight of the White Eagle.  So lose no time, and if
you have not enough money take my purse."

I picked up the purse which had fallen out, and put it back in his
pocket, thanking him, and saying it would be useless to me, for if I
were guilty I was content to lose my head.  "I hope," I added, "that
your wound will not be mortal, and I am deeply grieved at your
obliging me to fight."

With these words I kissed him on his brow and left the inn, seeing
neither horses nor carriage, nor servant.  They had all gone off for
doctor, surgeon, priest, and the friends and relatives of the wounded
man.

I was alone and without any weapon, in the midst of a snow-covered
country, my hand was wounded, and I had not the slightest idea which
was the way to Warsaw.

I took the road which seemed most likely, and after I had gone some
distance I met a peasant with an empty sleigh.

"Warszawa?" I cried, shewing him a ducat.

He understood me, and lifted a coarse mat, with which he covered me
when I got into the sleigh, and then set off at a gallop.

All at once Biniski, Branicki's bosom-friend, came galloping
furiously along the road with his bare sword in his hand.  He was
evidently running after me.  Happily he did not glance at the
wretched sleigh in which I was, or else he would undoubtedly have
murdered me.  I got at last to Warsaw, and went to the house of
Prince Adam Czartoryski to beg him to shelter me, but there was
nobody there.  Without delay I determined to seek refuge in the
Convent of the Recollets, which was handy.

I rang at the door of the monastery, and the porter seeing me covered
with blood hastened to shut the door, guessing the object of my
visit.  But I did not give him the time to do so, but honouring him
with a hearty kick forced my way in.  His cries attracted a troop of
frightened monks.  I demanded sanctuary, and threatened them with
vengeance if they refused to grant it.  One of their number spoke to
me, and I was taken to a little den which looked more like a dungeon
than anything else.  I offered no resistance, feeling sure that they
would change their tune before very long.  I asked them to send for
my servants, and when they came I sent for a doctor and Campioni.
Before the surgeon could come the Palatin of Polduchia was announced.
I had never had the honour of speaking to him, but after hearing the
history of my duel he was so kind as to give me all the particulars
of a duel he had fought in his youthful days.  Soon after came the
Palatin of Kalisch, Prince Jablenowski.  Prince Sanguska, and the
Palatin of Wilna, who all joined in a chorus of abuse of the monks
who had lodged me so scurvily.  The poor religious excused themselves
by saying that I had ill-treated their porter, which made my noble
friends laugh; but I did not laugh, for my wound was very painful.
However I was immediately moved into two of their best guest-rooms.

The ball had pierced my hand by the metacarpus under the index
finger, and had broken the first phalanges.  Its force had been
arrested by a metal button on my waistcoat, and it had only inflicted
a slight wound on my stomach close to the navel.  However, there it
was and it had to be extracted, for it pained me extremely.  An
empiric named Gendron, the first surgeon my servants had found, made
an opening on the opposite side of my hand which doubled the wound.
While he was performing this painful operation I told the story of
the duel to the company, concealing the anguish I was enduring.  What
a power vanity exercises on the moral and physical forces!  If I had
been alone I should probably have fainted.

As soon as the empiric Gendron was gone, the palatin's surgeon came
in and took charge of the case, calling Gendron a low fellow.  At the
same time Prince Lubomirski, the husband of the palatin's daughter,
arrived, and gave us all a surprise by recounting the strange
occurrences which had happened after the duel.  Bininski came to
where Branicki was lying, and seeing his wound rode off furiously on
horseback, swearing to strike me dead wherever he found me.  He
fancied I would be with Tomatis, and went to his house.  He found
Tomatis with his mistress, Prince Lubomirski, and Count Moszczinski,
but no Casanova was visible.  He asked where I was, and on Tomatis
replying that he did not know he discharged a pistol at his head.  At
this dastardly action Count Moszczincki seized him and tried to throw
him out of the window, but the madman got loose with three cuts of
his sabre, one of which slashed the count on the face and knocked out
three of his teeth.

"After this exploit," Prince Lubomirski continued, "he seized me by
the throat and held a pistol to my head, threatening to blow out my
brains if I did not take him in safety to the court where his horse
was, so that he might get away from the house without any attack
being made on him by Tomatis's servants; and I did so immediately.
Moszczinski is in the doctor's hands, and will be laid up for some
time.

"As soon as it was reported that Branicki was killed, his Uhlans
began to ride about the town swearing to avenge their colonel, and to
slaughter you.  It is very fortunate that you took refuge here.

"The chief marshal has had the monastery surrounded by two hundred
dragoons, ostensibly to prevent your escape, but in reality to defend
you from Branicki's soldiers.

"The doctors say that the postoli is in great danger if the ball has
wounded the intestines, but if not they answer for his recovery.  His
fate will be known tomorrow.  He now lies at the lord chamberlain's,
not daring to have himself carried to his apartments at the palace.
The king has been to see him, and the general who was present told
his majesty that the only thing that saved your life was your threat
to aim at Branicki's head.  This frightened him, and to keep your
ball from his head he stood in such an awkward position that he
missed your vital parts.  Otherwise he would undoubtedly have shot
you through the heart, for he can split a bullet into two halves by
firing against the blade of a knife.  It was also a lucky thing for
you that you escaped Bininski, who never thought of looking for you
in the wretched sleigh."

"My lord, the most fortunate thing for me is that I did not kill my
man outright.  Otherwise I should have been cut to pieces just as I
went to his help by three of his servants, who stood over me with
drawn swords.  However, the postoli ordered them to leave me alone.

"I am sorry for what has happened to your highness and Count
Moszczinski; and if Tomatis was not killed by the madman it is only
because the pistol was only charged with powder."

"That's what I think, for no one heard the bullet; but it was a mere
chance."

"Quite so."

Just then an officer of the palatin's came to me with a note from his
master, which ran as follows:

"Read what the king says to me, and sleep well."

The king's note was thus conceived:

"Branicki, my dear uncle, is dangerous wounded.  My surgeons are
doing all they can for him, but I have not forgotten Casanova.  You
may assure him that he is pardoned, even if Branicki should die."

I kissed the letter gratefully, and shewed it to my visitors, who
lauded this generous man truly worthy of being a king.

After this pleasant news I felt in need of rest, and my lords left
me.  As soon as they were gone, Campioni, who had come in before and
had stood in the background, came up to me and gave me back the
packet of papers, and with tears of joy congratulated me on the happy
issue of the duel.

Next day I had shoals of visitors, and many of the chiefs of the
party opposed to Branicki sent me purses full of gold.  The persons
who brought the money on behalf of such a lord or lady, said that
being a foreigner I might be in need of money, and that was their
excuse for the liberty they had taken.  I thanked and refused them
all, and sent back at least four thousand ducats, and was very proud
of having done so.  Campioni thought it was absurd, and he was right,
for I repented afterwards of what I had done.  The only present I
accepted was a dinner for four persons, which Prince Adam Czartoryski
sent me in every day, though the doctor would not let me enjoy it, he
being a great believer in diet.

The wound in my stomach was progressing favourably, but on the fourth
day the surgeons said my hand was becoming gangrened, and they agreed
that the only remedy was amputation.  I saw this announced in the
Court Gazette the next morning, but as I had other views on the
matter I laughed heartily at the paragraph.  The sheet was printed at
night, after the king had placed his initials to the copy.  In the
morning several persons came to condole with me, but I received their
sympathy with great irreverence.  I merely laughed at Count Clary,
who said I would surely submit to the operation; and just as he
uttered the words the three surgeons came in together.

"Well, gentlemen," said I, "you have mustered in great strength; why
is this?"

My ordinary surgeon replied that he wished to have the opinion of the
other two before proceeding to amputation, and they would require to
look at the wound.

The dressing was lifted and gangrene was declared to be undoubtedly
present, and execution was ordered that evening.  The butchers gave
me the news with radiant faces, and assured me I need not be afraid
as the operation would certainly prove efficacious.

"Gentlemen," I replied, "you seem to have a great many solid
scientific reasons for cutting off my hand; but one thing you have
not got, and that is my consent.  My hand is my own, and I am going
to keep it."

"Sir, it is certainly gangrened; by to-morrow the arm will begin to
mortify, and then you will have to lose your arm."

"Very good; if that prove so you shall cut off my arm, but I happen
to know something of gangrene, and there is none about me."

"You cannot know as much about it as we do."

"Possibly; but as far as I can make out, you know nothing at all."

"That's rather a strong expression."

"I don't care whether it be strong or weak; you can go now."

In a couple of hours everyone whom the surgeons had told of my
obstinacy came pestering me.  Even the prince-palatin wrote to me
that the king was extremely surprised at my lack of courage.  This
stung me to the quick, and I wrote the king a long letter, half in
earnest and half in jest, in which I laughed at the ignorance of the
surgeons, and at the simplicity of those who took whatever they said
for gospel truth.  I added that as an arm without a hand would be
quite as useless as no arm at all, I meant to wait till it was
necessary to cut off the arm.

My letter was read at Court, and people wondered how a man with
gangrene could write a long letter of four pages.  Lubomirski told me
kindly that I was mistaken in laughing at my friends, for the three
best surgeons in Warsaw could not be mistaken in such a simple case.

"My lord, they are not deceived themselves, but they want to deceive
me."

"Why should they?"

"To make themselves agreeable to Branicki, who is in a dangerous
state, and might possibly get better if he heard that my hand had
been taken off."

"Really that seems an incredible idea to me!"

"What will your highness say on the day when I am proved to be
right?"

"I shall say you are deserving of the highest praise, but the day
must first come."

"We shall see this evening, and I give you my word that if any
gangrene has attacked the arm, I will have it cut off to-morrow
morning."

Four surgeons came to see me.  My arm was pronounced to be highly
aedematous, and of a livid colour up to the elbow; but when the lint
was taken off the wound I could see for myself that it was
progressing admirably.  However, I concealed my delight.  Prince
Augustus Sulkowski and the Abbe Gouvel were present; the latter being
attached to the palatin's court.  The judgment of the surgeons was
that the arm was gangrened, and must be amputated by the next morning
at latest.

I was tired of arguing with these rascals, so I told them to bring
their instruments, and that I would submit to the operation.  At this
they went way in high glee, to tell the news at the Court, to
Branicki, to the palatin, and so forth.  I merely gave my servants
orders to send them away when they came.

I can dwell no more on this matter, though it is interesting enough
to me.  However, the reader will no doubt be obliged to me by my
simply saying that a French surgeon in Prince Sulkowski's household
took charge of the case in defiance of professional etiquette, and
cured me perfectly, so I have my hand and my arm to this day.

On Easter Day I went to mass with my arm in a sling.  My cure had
only lasted three weeks, but I was not able to put the hand to any
active employment for eighteen months afterwards.  Everyone was
obliged to congratulate me on having held out against the amputation,
and the general consent declared the surgeons grossly ignorant, while
I was satisfied with thinking them very great knaves.

I must here set down an incident which happened three days after the
duel.

I was told that a Jesuit father from the bishop of the diocese wanted
to speak to me in private, and I had him shewn in, and asked him what
he wanted.

"I have come from my lord-bishop," said he, "to absolve you from the
ecclesiastical censure, which you have incurred by duelling."

"I am always delighted to receive absolution, father, but only after
I have confessed my guilt.  In the present case I have nothing to
confess; I was attacked, and I defended myself.  Pray thank my lord
for his kindness.  If you like to absolve me without confession, I
shall be much obliged."

"If you do not confess, I cannot give you absolution, but you can do
this: ask me to absolve you, supposing you have fought a duel."

"Certainly; I shall be glad if you will absolve me, supposing I have
fought a duel."

The delightful Jesuit gave me absolution in similar terms.  He was
like his brethren--never at a loss when a loophole of any kind is
required.

Three days before I left the monastery, that is on Holy Thursday, the
marshal withdrew my guard.  After I had been to mass on Easter Day, I
went to Court, and as I kissed the king's hand, he asked me (as had
been arranged) why I wore my arm in a sling.  I said I had been
suffering from a rheum, and he replied, with a meaning smile,--

"Take care not to catch another."

After my visit to the king, I called on Branicki, who had made daily
enquiries afer my health, and had sent me back my sword, He was
condemned to stay in bed for six weeks longer at least, for the wad
of my pistol had got into the wound, and in extracting it the opening
had to be enlarged, which retarded his recovery.  The king had just
appointed him chief huntsman, not so exalted an office as
chamberlain, but a more lucrative one.  It was said he had got the
place because he was such a good shot; but if that were the reason I
had a better claim to it, for I had proved the better shot--for one
day at all events.

I entered an enormous ante-room in which stood officers, footmen,
pages, and lacqueys, all gazing at me with the greatest astonishment.
I asked if my lord was to be seen, and begged the door-keeper to send
in my name.  He did not answer, but sighed, and went into his
master's room.  Directly after, he came out and begged me, with a
profound bow, to step in.

Branicki, who was dressed in a magnificent gown and supported by
pillows and cushions, greeted me by taking off his nightcap.  He was
as pale as death.

"I have come here, my lord," I began, "to offer you my service, and
to assure you how I regret that I did not pass over a few trifling
words of yours."

"You have no reason to reproach yourself, M. Casanova."

"Your excellency is very kind.  I am also come to say that by
fighting with me you have done me an honour which completely swallows
up all offence, and I trust that you will give me your protection for
the future."

"I confess I insulted you, but you will allow that I have paid for
it.  As to my friends, I openly say that they are my enemies unless
they treat you with respect.  Bininski has been cashiered, and his
nobility taken from him; he is well served.  As to my protection you
have no need of it, the king esteems you highly, like myself, and all
men of honour.  Sit down; we will be friends.  A cup of chocolate for
this gentleman.  You seem to have got over your wound completely."

"Quite so, my lord, except as to the use of my fingers, and that will
take some time."

"You were quite right to withstand those rascally surgeons, and you
had good reason for your opinion that the fools thought to please me
by rendering you one-handed.  They judged my heart by their own.  I
congratulate you on the preservation of your hand, but I have not
been able to make out how my ball could have wounded you in the hand
after striking your stomach."

Just then the chocolate was brought, and the chamberlain came in and
looked at me with a smile.  In five minutes the room was full of
lords and ladies who had heard I was with Branicki, and wanted to
know how we were getting on.  I could see that they did not expect to
find us on such good terms, and were agreeably surprised.  Branicki
asked the question which had been interrupted by the chocolate and
the visitors over again.

"Your excellency will allow me to assume the position I was in as I
received your fire."

"Pray do so."

I rose and placed myself in the position, and he said he understood
how it was.

A lady said,--

"You should have put your hand behind your body."

"Excuse me, madam, but I thought it better to put my body behind my
hand."

This sally made Branicki laugh, but his sister said to me,--

"You wanted to kill my brother, for you aimed at his head."

"God forbid, madam!  my interest lay in keeping him alive to defend
me from his friends."

"But you said you were going to fire at his head."

"That's a mere figure of speech, just as one says, 'I'll blow your
brains out.' The skilled duellist, however, always aims at the middle
of the body; the head does not offer a large enough surface."

"Yes," said Branicki, "your tactics were superior to mine, and I am
obliged to you for the lesson you gave me."

"Your excellency gave me a lesson in heroism of far greater value."

"You must have had a great deal of practice with the pistol,"
continued his sister.

"Not at all, madam, I regard the weapon with detestation.  This
unlucky shot was my first; but I have always known a straight line,
and my hand has always been steady."

"That's all one wants," said Branicki.  "I have those advantages
myself, and I am only too well pleased that I did not aim so well as
usual."

"Your ball broke my first phalanges.  Here it is you see, flattened
by my bone.  Allow me to return it to you."

"I am sorry to say I can't return yours, which I suppose remains on
the field of battle."

"You seem to be getting better, thank God!"

"The wound is healing painfully.  If I had imitated you I should no
longer be in the land of the living; I am told you made an excellent
dinner?"

"Yes, my lord, I was afraid I might never have another chance of
dining again."

"If I had dined, your ball would have pierced my intestines; but
being empty it yielded to the bullet, and let it pass by harmlessly."

I heard afterwards that on the day of the duel Branicki had gone to
confession and mass, and had communicated.  The priest could not
refuse him absolution, if he said that honour obliged him to fight;
for this was in accordance with the ancient laws of chivalry.  As for
me I only addressed these words to God:

"Lord, if my enemy kill me, I shall be damned; deign, therefore, to
preserve me from death.  Amen."

After a long and pleasant conversation I took leave of the hero to
visit the high constable, Count Bielinski, brother of Countess
Salmor.  He was a very old man, but the sovereign administrator of
justice in Poland.  I had never spoken to him, but he had defended me
from Branicki's Uhlans, and had made out my pardon, so I felt bound
to go and thank him.

I sent in my name, and the worthy old man greeted me with:

"What can I do for you?"

"I have come to kiss the hand of the kindly man that signed my
pardon, and to promise your excellency to be more discreet in
future."

"I advise you to be more discreet indeed.  As for your pardon, thank
the king; for if he had not requested me especially to grant it you,
I should have had you beheaded."

"In spite of the extenuating circumstances, my lord?"

"What circumstances?  Did you or did you not fight a duel."

"That is not a proper way of putting it; I was obliged to defend
myself.  You might have charged me with fighting a duel if Branicki
had taken me outside the ban, as I requested, but as it was he took
me where he willed and made me fight.  Under these circumstances I am
sure your excellency would have spared my head."

"I really can't say.  The king requested that you should be pardoned,
and that shews he believes you to be deserving of pardon; I
congratulate you on his good will.  I shall be pleased if you will
dine with me tomorrow."

"My lord, I am delighted to accept your invitation."

The illustrious old constable was a man of great intelligence.  He
had been a bosom-friend of the celebrated Poniatowski, the king's
father.  We had a good deal of conversation together at dinner the
next day.

"What a comfort it would have been to your excellency's friend," said
I, "if he could have lived to see his son crowned King of Poland."

"He would never have consented."

The vehemence with which he pronounced these words gave me a deep
insight into his feelings.  He was of the Saxon party.  The same day,
that is on Easter Day, I dined at the palatin's.

"Political reasons," said he, "prevented me from visiting you at the
monastery; but you must not think I had forgotten you, for you were
constantly in my thoughts.  I am going to lodge you here, for my wife
is very fond of your society; but the rooms will not be ready for
another six weeks."

"I shall take the opportunity, my lord, of paying a visit to the
Palatin of Kiowia, who has honoured me with an invitation to come and
see him."

"Who gave you the invitation?"

"Count Bruhl, who is at Dresden; his wife is daughter of the
palatin."

"This journey is an excellent idea, for this duel of yours has made
you innumerable enemies, and I only hope you will have to fight no
more duels.  I give you fair warning; be on your guard, and never go
on foot, especially at night."

I spent a fortnight in going out to dinner and supper every day.  I
had become the fashion, and wherever I went I had to tell the duel
story over again.  I was rather tired of it myself, but the wish to
please and my own self-love were too strong to be resisted.  The king
was nearly always present, but feigned not to hear me.  However, he
once asked me if I had been insulted by a patrician in Venice,
whether I should have called him out immediately.

"No, sire, for his patrician pride would have prevented his
complying, and I should have had my pains for my trouble."

"Then what would you have done?"

"Sire, I should have contained myself, though if a noble Venetian
were to insult me in a foreign country he would have to give me
satisfaction."

I called on Prince Moszczinski, and Madame Binetti happened to be
there; the moment she saw me she made her escape.

"What has she against me?" I asked the count.

"She is afraid of you, because she was the cause of the duel, and now
Branicki who was her lover will have nothing more to say to her.  She
hoped he would serve you as he served Tomatis, and instead of that
you almost killed her bravo.  She lays the fault on him for having
accepted your challenge, but he has resolved to have done with her."

This Count Moszczinski was both good-hearted and quick-witted, and
so, generous that he ruined himself by making presents.  His wounds
were beginning to heal, but though I was the indirect cause of his
mishap, far from bearing malice against me he had become my friend.

The person whom I should have expected to be most grateful to me for
the duel was Tomatis, but on the contrary he hated the sight of me
and hardly concealed his feelings.  I was the living reproach of his
cowardice; my wounded hand seemed to shew him that he had loved his
money more than his honour.  I am sure he would have preferred
Branicki to have killed me, for then he would have become an object
of general execration, and Tomatis would have been received with less
contempt in the great houses he still frequented.

I resolved to pay a visit to the discontented party who had only
recognized the new king on compulsion, and some of whom had not
recognized him at all; so I set out with my true friend Campioni and
one servant.

Prince Charles of Courland had started for Venice, where I had given
him letters for my illustrious friends who would make his visit a
pleasant one.  The English ambassador who had given me an
introduction to Prince Adam had just arrived at Warsaw.  I dined with
him at the prince's house, and the king signified his wish to be of
the party.  I heard a good deal of conversation about Madame de
Geoffrin, an old sweetheart of the king's whom he had just summoned
to Warsaw.  The Polish monarch, of whom I cannot speak in too
favourable terms, was yet weak enough to listen to the slanderous
reports against me, and refused to make my fortune.  I had the
pleasure of convincing him that he was mistaken, but I will speak of
this later on.

I arrived at Leopol the sixth day after I had left Warsaw, having
stopped a couple of days at Prince Zamoiski's; he had forty thousand
ducats a-year, but also the falling sickness.

"I would give all my goods," said he, "to be cured."

I pitied his young wife.  She was very fond of him, and yet had to
deny him, for his disease always came on him in moments of amorous
excitement.  She had the bitter task of constantly refusing him, and
even of running away if he pressed her hard.  This great nobleman,
who died soon after, lodged me in a splendid room utterly devoid of
furniture.  This is the Polish custom; one is supposed to bring one's
furniture with one.

At Leopol I put up, at an hotel, but I soon had to move from thence
to take up my abode with the famous Kaminska, the deadly foe of
Branicki, the king, and all that party.  She was very rich, but she
has since been ruined by conspiracies.  She entertained me
sumptuously for a week, but the visit was agreeable to neither side,
as she could only speak Polish and German.  From Leopol I proceeded
to a small town, the name of which I forget (the Polish names are
very crabbed) to take an introduction from Prince Lubomirski to
Joseph Rzewuski, a little old man who wore a long beard as a sign of
mourning for the innovations that were being introduced into his
country.  He was rich, learned, superstitiously religious, and polite
exceedingly.  I stayed with him for three days.  He was the commander
of a stronghold containing a garrison of five hundred men.

On the first day, as I was in his room with some other officers,
about eleven o'clock in the morning, another officer came in,
whispered to Rzewuski, and then came up to me and whispered in my
ear, "Venice and St. Mark."

"St. Mark," I answered aloud, "is the patron saint and protector of
Venice," and everybody began to laugh.

It dawned upon me that "Venice and St. Mark" was the watchword, and I
began to apologize profusely, and the word was changed.

The old commander spoke to me with great politeness.  He never went
to Court, but he had resolved on going to the Diet to oppose the
Russian party with all his might.  The poor man, a Pole of the true
old leaven, was one of the four whom Repnin arrested and sent to
Siberia.

After taking leave of this brave patriot, I went to Christianpol,
where lived the famous palatin Potocki, who had been one of the
lovers of the empress Anna Ivanovna.  He had founded the town in
which he lived and called it after his own name.  This nobleman,
still a fine man, kept a splendid court.  He honoured Count Bruhl by
keeping me at his house for a fortnight, and sending me out every day
with his doctor, the famous Styrneus, the sworn foe of Van Swieten, a
still more famous physician.  Although Styrneus was undoubtedly a
learned man, I thought him somewhat extravagant and empirical.  His
system was that of Asclepiades, considered as exploded since the time
of the great Boerhaave; nevertheless, he effected wonderful cures.

In the evenings I was always with the palatin and his court.  Play
was not heavy, and I always won, which was fortunate and indeed
necessary for me.  After an extremely agreeable visit to the palatin
I returned to Leopol, where I amused myself for a week with a pretty
girl who afterwards so captivated Count Potocki, starost of Sniatin,
that he married her.  This is purity of blood with a vengeance in
your noble families!

Leaving Leopol I went to Palavia, a splendid palace on the Vistula,
eighteen leagues distant from Warsaw.  It belonged to the prince
palatin, who had built it himself.

Howsoever magnificent an abode may be, a lonely man will weary of it
unless he has the solace of books or of some great idea.  I had
neither, and boredom soon made itself felt.

A pretty peasant girl came into my room, and finding her to my taste
I tried to make her understand me without the use of speech, but she
resisted and shouted so loudly that the door-keeper came up, and
asked me, coolly,--

"If you like the girl, why don't you go the proper way to work?"

"What way is that?"

"Speak to her father, who is at hand, and arrange the matter
amicably."

"I don't know Polish.  Will you carry the thing through?"

"Certainly.  I suppose you will give fifty florins?"

"You are laughing at me.  I will give a hundred willingly, provided
she is a maid and is as submissive as a lamb."

No doubt the arrangement was made without difficulty, for our hymen
took place the same evening, but no sooner was the operation
completed than the poor lamb fled away in hot haste, which made me
suspect that her father had used rather forcible persuasion with her.
I would not have allowed this had I been aware of it.

The next morning several girls were offered to me, but the faces of
all of them were covered.

"Where is the girl?" said I.  "I want to see her face."

"Never mind about the face, if the rest is all right."

"The face is the essential part for me," I replied, "and the rest I
look upon as an accessory."

He did not understand this.  However, they were uncovered, but none
of their faces excited my desires.

As a rule, the Polish women are ugly; a beauty is a miracle, and a
pretty woman a rare exception.  At the end of a week of feasting and
weariness, I returned to Warsaw.

In this manner I saw Podolia and Volkynia, which were rebaptized a
few years later by the names of Galicia and Lodomeria, for they are
now part of the Austrian Empire.  It is said, however, that they are
more prosperous than they ever were before.

At Warsaw I found Madame Geoffrin the object of universal admiration;
and everybody was remarking with what simplicity she was dressed.  As
for myself, I was received not coldly, but positively rudely.  People
said to my face,--

"We did not expect to see you here again.  Why did you come back?"

"To pay my debts."

This behaviour astonished and disgusted me.  The prince-palatin even
seemed quite changed towards me.  I was still invited to dinner, but
no one spoke to me.  However, Prince Adam's sister asked me very
kindly to come and sup with her, and I accepted the invitation with
delight.  I found myself seated opposite the king, who did not speak
one word to me the whole time.  He had never behaved to me thus
before.

The next day I dined with the Countess Oginski, and in the course of
dinner the countess asked where the king had supper the night before;
nobody seemed to know, and I did not answer.  Just as we were rising,
General Roniker came in, and the question was repeated.

"At Princess Strasnikowa's," said the general, "and M. Casanova was
there."

"Then why did you not answer my question?" said the countess to me.

"Because I am very sorry to have been there.  His majesty neither
spoke to me nor looked at me.  I see I am in disgrace, but for the
life of me I know not why."

On leaving the house I went to call on Prince Augustus Sulkowski, who
welcomed me as of old, but told me that I had made a mistake in
returning to Warsaw as public opinion was against me.

"What have I done?"

"Nothing; but the Poles are always inconstant and changeable.
'Sarmatarum virtus veluti extra ipsos'.  This inconstancy will cost
us dear sooner or later.  Your fortune was made, but you missed the
turn of the tide, and I advise you to go."

"I will certainly do so, but it seems to me rather hard."

When I got home my servant gave me a letter which some unknown person
had left at my door.  I opened it and found it to be anonymous, but I
could see it came from a well-wisher.  The writer said that the
slanderers had got the ears of the king, and that I was no longer a
persona grata at Court, as he had been assured that the Parisians had
burnt me in effigy for my absconding with the lottery money, and that
I had been a strolling player in Italy and little better than a
vagabond.

Such calumnies are easy to utter but hard to refute in a foreign
country.  At all Courts hatred, born of envy, is ever at work.  I
might have despised the slanders and left the country, but I had
contracted debts and had not sufficient money to pay them and my
expenses to Portugal, where I thought I might do something.

I no longer saw any company, with the exception of Campioni, who
seemed more distressed than myself.  I wrote to Venice and everywhere
else, where there was a chance of my getting funds; but one day the
general, who had been present at the duel, called on me, and told me
(though he seemed ashamed of his task) that the king requested me to
leave the ban in the course of a week.

Such a piece of insolence made my blood boil, and I informed the
general that he might tell the king that I did not feel inclined to
obey such an unjust order, and that if I left I would let all the
world know that I had been compelled to do so by brute force.

"I cannot take such a message as that," said the general, kindly.
"I shall simply tell the king that I have executed his orders, and no
more; but of course you must follow your own judgment."

In the excess of my indignation I wrote to the king that I could not
obey his orders and keep my honour.  I said in my letter,--

"My creditors, sire, will forgive me for leaving Poland without
paying my debts, when they learn that I have only done so because
your majesty gave me no choice."

I was thinking how I could ensure this letter reaching the king, when
who should arrive but Count Moszczinski.  I told him what had
happened, and asked if he could suggest any means of delivering tire
letter.  "Give it to me," said he; "I will place it in the king's
hands."

As soon as he had gone I went out to take the air, and called on
Prince Sulkowski, who was not at all astonished at my news.  As if to
sweeten the bitter pill I had to swallow, he told me how the Empress
of Austria had ordered him to leave Vienna in twenty-four hours,
merely because he had complimented the Archduchess Christina on
behalf of Prince Louis of Wurtemberg.

The next day Count Moszczinski brought me a present of a thousand
ducats from the king, who said that my leaving Warsaw would probably
be the means of preserving my life, as in that city I was exposed to
danger which I could not expect to escape eventually.

This referred to five or six challenges I had received, and to which
I had not even taken the trouble to reply.  My enemies might possibly
assassinate me, and the king did not care to be constantly anxious on
my account.  Count Moszczinski added that the order to leave carried
no dishonour with it, considering by whom it had been delivered, and
the delay it gave me to make my preparations.

The consequence of all this was that I not only gave my word to go,
but that I begged the count to thank his majesty for his kindness,
and the interest he had been pleased to take in me.

When I gave in, the generous Moszczinski embraced me, begged me to
write to him, and accept a present of a travelling carriage as a
token of his friendship.  He informed me that Madame Binetti's
husband had gone off with his wife's maid, taking with him her
diamonds, jewels, linen, and even her silver plate, leaving her to
the tender mercies of the dancer, Pic.  Her admirers had clubbed
together to make up to her for what her husband had stolen.  I also
heard that the king's sister had arrived at Warsaw from Bialistock,
and it was hoped that her husband would follow her.  This husband was
the real Count Branicki, and the Branicki, or rather Branecki, or
Bragnecki, who had fought with me, was no relation to him whatever.

The following day I paid my debts, which amounted to about two
hundred ducats, and I made preparations for starting for Breslau, the
day after, with Count Clary, each of us having his own carriage.
Clary was one of those men to whom lying has become a sort of second
nature; whenever such an one opens his mouth, you may safely say to
him, "You have lied, or you are going to lie."  If they could feel
their own degradation, they would be much to be pitied, for by their
own fault at last no one will believe them even when by chance they
speak the truth.  This Count Clary, who was not one of the Clarys of
Teplitz, could neither go to his own country nor to Vienna, because
he had deserted the army on the eve of a battle.  He was lame, but he
walked so adroitly that his defect did not appear.  If this had been
the only truth he concealed, it would have been well, for it was a
piece of deception that hurt no one.  He died miserably in Venice.

We reached Breslau in perfect safety, and without experiencing any
adventures.  Campioni, who had accompanied me as far as Wurtemburg,
returned, but rejoined me at Vienna in the course of seven months.
Count Clary had left Breslau, and I thought I would make the
acquaintance of the Abbe Bastiani, a celebrated Venetian, whose
fortune had been made by the King of Prussia.  He was canon of the
cathedral, and received me cordially; in fact, each mutually desired
the other's acquaintance.  He was a fine well-made man, fair-
complexioned, and at least six feet high.  He was also witty,
learned, eloquent, and gifted with a persuasive voice; his cook was
an artist, his library full of choice volumes, and his cellar a very
good one.  He was well lodged on the ground floor, and on the first
floor he accommodated a lady, of whose children he was very fond,
possibly because he was their father.  Although a great admirer of
the fair sex, his tastes were by no means exclusive, and he did not
despise love of the Greek or philosophic kind.  I could see that he
entertained a passion for a young priest whom I met at his table.
This young abbe was Count di Cavalcano and Bastiani seemed to adore
him, if fiery glances signified anything; but the innocent young man
did not seem to understand, and I suppose Bastiani did not like to
lower his dignity by declaring his love.  The canon shewed me all the
letters he had received from the King of Prussia before he had been
made canon.  He was the son of a tailor at Venice, and became a
friar, but having committed some peccadillo which got him into
trouble, he was fortunate enough to be able to make his escape.  He
fled to The Hague, and there met Tron, the Venetian ambassador, who
lent him a hundred ducats with which he made his way to Berlin and
favour with the king.  Such are the ways by which men arrive at
fortune!  'Sequere deum'!

On the event of my departure from Breslau I went to pay a call on a
baroness for whom I had a letter of introduction from her son, who
was an officer of the Polish Court.  I sent up my name and was asked
to wait a few moments, as the baroness was dressing.  I sat down
beside a pretty girl, who was neatly dressed in a mantle with a hood.
I asked her if she were waiting for the baroness like myself.

"Yes, sir," she replied, "I have come to offer myself as governess
for her three daughters."

"What!  Governess at your age?"

"Alas! sir, age has nothing to do with necessity.  I have neither
father nor mother.  My brother is a poor lieutenant who cannot help
me; what can I do?  I can only get a livelihood by turning my good
education to account."

"What will your salary be?"

"Fifty wretched crowns, enough to buy my dresses."

"It's very little."

"It is as much as people give."

"Where are you living now?"

"With a poor aunt, where I can scarce earn enough bread to keep me
alive by sewing from morning till night."

"If you liked to become my governess instead of becoming a children's
governess, I would give you fifty crowns, not per year, but per
month."

"Your governess?  Governess to your family, you mean, I suppose?"

"I have no family; I am a bachelor, and I spend my time in
travelling.  I leave at five o'clock to-morrow morning for Dresden,
and if you like to come with me there is a place for you in my
carriage.  I am staying at such an inn.  Come there with your trunk,
and we will start together."

"You are joking; besides, I don't know you."

"I am not jesting; and we should get to know each other perfectly
well in twenty-four hours; that is ample time."

My serious air convinced the girl that I was not laughing at her; but
she was still very much astonished, while I was very much astonished
to find I had gone so far when I had only intended to joke.  In
trying to win over the girl I had won over myself.  It seemed to me a
rare adventure, and I was delighted to see that she was giving it her
serious attention by the side-glances she kept casting in my
direction to see if I was laughing at her.  I began to think that
fate had brought us together that I might become the architect of her
fortune.  I had no doubt whatever as to her goodness or her feelings
for me, for she completely infatuated my judgment.  To put the
finishing stroke on the affair I drew out two ducats and gave them
her as an earnest of her first month's wages.  She took them timidly,
but seemed convinced that I was not imposing on her.

By this time the baroness was ready, and she welcomed me very kindly;
but I said I could not accept her invitation to dine with her the
following day, as I was leaving at day-break.  I replied to all the
questions that a fond mother makes concerning her son, and then took
leave of the worthy lady.  As I went out I noticed that the would-be
governess had disappeared.  The rest of the day I spent with the
canon, making good cheer, playing ombre, drinking hard, and talking
about girls or literature.  The next day my carriage came to the door
at the time I had arranged, and I went off without thinking of the
girl I had met at the baroness's.  But we had not gone two hundred
paces when the postillion stopped, a bundle of linen whirled through
the window into the carriage, and the governess got in.  I gave her a
hearty welcome by embracing her, and made her sit down beside me, and
so we drove off.

In the ensuing chapter the reader will become more fully acquainted
with my fresh conquest.  In the meantime let him imagine me rolling
peacefully along the Dresden road.




CHAPTER XXIII

My Arrival at Dresden with Maton--She Makes Me a Present--Leipzig--
Castelbajac--Schwerin--Return to Dresden and Departure--I Arrive at
Vienna--Pocchini's Vengeance


When I saw myself in the carriage with this pretty girl, who had
fallen on me as if from the clouds, I imagined I was intended to
shape her destiny.  Her tutelary genius must have placed her in my
hands, for I felt inclined to do her all the good that lay in my
power.  But for myself; was it a piece of good or ill luck for me?
I formed the question, but felt that time alone could give the
answer.  I knew that I was still living in my old style, while I was
beginning to feel that I was no longer a young man.

I was sure that my new companion could not have abandoned herself to
me in this manner, without having made up her mind to be complaisant;
but this was not enough for me, it was my humour to be loved.  This
was my chief aim, everything else was only fleeting enjoyment, and as
I had not had a love affair since I parted with Zaira, I hoped most
fervently that the present adventure would prove to be one.

Before long I learnt that my companion's name was Maton; this at
least was her surname, and I did not feel any curiosity to know the
name of the he or she saint whom her godmothers had constituted her
patron at the baptismal font.  I asked her if she could write French
as well as she spoke it, and she shewed me a letter by way of sample.
It assured me that she had received an excellent education, and this
fact increased my pleasure in the conquest I had made.  She said she
had left Breslau without telling her aunt or her cousin that she was
going, perhaps never to return.

"How about your belongings?"

"Belongings?  They were not worth the trouble of gathering together.
All I have is included in that small package, which contains a
chemise, a pair of stockings, some handkerchiefs, and a few
nicknacks."

"What will your lover say?"

"Alas! I haven't got one to say anything."

"I cannot credit that."

"I have had two lovers; the first one was a rascal, who took
advantage of my innocence to seduce me, and then left me when I
ceased to present any novelty for him; my second was an honest man,
but a poor lieutenant with no prospects of getting on.  He has not
abandoned me, but his regiment was ordered to Stetin, and since
then--"

"And since then?"

"We were too poor to write to one another, so we had to suffer in
silence."

This pathetic history seemed to bear the marks of truth; and I
thought it very possible that Maton had only come with me to make her
fortune or to do rather better than she had been doing, which would
not be difficult.  She was twenty-five years old, and as she had
never been out of Breslau before, she would doubtless be delighted to
see what the world was like at Dresden.  I could not help feeling
that I had been a fool to burden myself with the girl, who would most
likely cost me a lot of money; but still I found my conduct
excusable, as the chances were a hundred to one against her accepting
the proposal I had been foolish enough to make.  In short, I resolved
to enjoy the pleasure of having a pretty girl all to myself, and I
determined not to do anything during the journey, being anxious to
see whether her moral qualities would plead as strongly with me as
her physical beauty undoubtedly did.  At nightfall I stopped, wishing
to spend the night at the posting-station.  Maton, who had been very
hungry all day, but had not dared to tell me so, ate with an amazing
and pleasing appetite; but not being accustomed to wine, she would
have fallen asleep at table, if I had not begged her to retire.  She
begged my pardon, assuring me she would not let such a thing occur
again.  I smiled by way of reply, and stayed at the table, not
looking to see whether she undressed or went to bed in her clothes.
I went to bed myself soon after, and at five o'clock was up again to
order the coffee, and to see that the horses were put in.  Maton was
lying on her bed with all her clothes on, fast asleep, and perspiring
with the heat.  I woke her, telling her that another time she must
sleep more comfortably, as such heats were injurious to health.

She got up and left the room, no doubt to wash, for she returned
looking fresh and gay, and bade me good day, and asked me if I would
like to give her a kiss.

"I shall be delighted," I replied; and, after kissing her, I made her
hurry over the breakfast, as I wished to reach Dresden that evening.
However, I could not manage it, my carriage broke down, and took five
hours to mend, so I had to sleep at another posting station.  Maton
undressed this time, but I had the firmness not to look at her.

When I reached Dresden I put up at the "Hotel de Saxe," taking the
whole of the first floor.  My mother was in the country, and I paid
her a visit, much to her delight; we made quite an affecting picture,
with my arm in a sling.  I also saw my brother John and his wife
Therese, Roland, and a Roman girl whom I had known before him, and
who made much of me.  I also saw my sister, and I then went with my
brother to pay my suit to Count Bruhl and to his wife, the daughter
of the palatin of Kiowia, who was delighted to hear news of her
family.  I was welcomed everywhere, and everywhere I had to tell the
story of my duel.  I confess that very little pressing was required,
for I was very proud of it.

At this period the States were assembled in Dresden, and Prince
Xavier, uncle of the Elector, was regent during his minority.

The same evening I went to the opera-house, where faro was played.  I
played, but prudently, for my capital only consisted of eighteen
hundred ducats.

When I came back we had a good supper, and Maton pleased me both by
her appetite and amiability.  When we had finished I affectionately
asked her if she would like to share my bed, and she replied as
tenderly that she was wholly mine.  And so, after passing a
voluptuous night, we rose in the morning the best friends in the
world.

I spent the whole morning in furnishing her toilette.  A good many
people called on me, and wanted to be presented to Maton; but my
answer was that, as she was only my housekeeper, and not my wife, I
could not have the pleasure of introducing her.  In the same way I
had instructed her that she was not to let anyone in when I was away.
She was working in her room on the linen I had provided for her,
aided in her task by a seamstress.  Nevertheless, I did not want to
make her a slave, so I occasionally took her into the pleasant
suburbs of Dresden, where she was at liberty to speak to any of my
acquaintances we might meet.

This reserve of mine which lasted for the fortnight we stayed in
Dresden was mortifying for all the young officers in the place, and
especially for the Comte de Bellegarde, who was not accustomed to
being denied any girl to whom he chose to take a fancy.  He was a
fine young fellow, of great boldness and even impudence, and one day
he came into our room and asked me to give him a dinner just as Maton
and myself were sitting down to table.  I could not refuse him, and I
could not request Maton to leave the room, so from the beginning to
the end of the meal he showered his military jokes and attentions on
her, though he was perfectly polite the whole time.  Maton behaved
very well; she was not prudish, nor did she forget the respect she
owed to me and indeed to herself.

I was accustomed to take a siesta every day after dinner, so half an
hour after the conclusion of the meal I stated the fact and begged
him to leave us.  He asked smilingly if the lady took a siesta too,
and I replied that we usually took it together.  This made him take
up his hat and cane, and as he did so he asked us both to dine with
him the next day.  I replied that I never took Maton out anywhere,
but that he would be welcome to come and take pot-luck with us every
day if he liked.

This refusal exhausted his resources, and he took his leave if not
angrily, at least very coldly.

My mother returned to her town apartments, which were opposite to
mine, and the next day when I was calling on her I noticed the erker
(a sort of grating in the Spanish fashion) which indicated my rooms
in the hotel.  I happened to look in that direction and I saw
Maton at the window standing up and talking to M. de Bellegarde, who
was at a neighbouring window.  This window belonged to a room which
adjoined my suite of rooms, but did not belong to it.  This discovery
amused me.  I knew what I was about, and did not fear to be made a
cuckold in spite of myself.  I was sure I had not been observed, and
I was not going to allow any trespassers.  I was jealous, in fact;
but the jealousy was of the mind, not the heart.

I came in to dinner in the highest spirits, and Maton was as gay as
myself.  I led the conversation up to Bellegarde, and said I believed
him to be in love with her.

"Oh, he is like all officers with girls; but I don't think he is more
in love with me than any other girl."

"Oh, but didn't he come to call on me this morning?"

"Certainly not; and if he had come the maid would have told him you
were out."

"Did you not notice him walking up and down 'under the windows?"

"No."

This was enough for me; I knew they had laid a plot together.  Maton
was deceiving me, and I should be cheated in twenty-four hours unless
I took care.  At my age such treason should not have astonished me,
but my vanity would not allow me to admit the fact.

I dissembled my feelings and caressed the traitress, and then leaving
the house I went to the theatre where I played with some success and
returned home while the second act was in progress; it was still
daylight.  The waiter was at the door, and I asked him whether there
were any rooms besides those which I occupied on the first floor.
"Yes, two rooms, both looking on the street."

"Tell the landlord that I will take them both."

"They were taken yesterday evening."

"By whom?"

"By a Swiss officer, who is entertaining a party of friends to supper
here this evening."

I said no more lest I should awaken suspicion; but I felt sure that
Bellegarde could easily obtain access to my rooms from his.  Indeed,
there was a door leading to the room where Maton slept with her maid
when I did not care to have her in my room.  The door was bolted on
her side, but as she was in the plot there was not much security in
this.

I went upstairs softly, and finding Maton on the balcony, I said,
after some indifferent conversation, that I should like to change
rooms.

"You shall have my room," I said, "and I will have yours; I can read
there, and see the people going by."

She thought it a very good idea, and added that it would serve us
both if I would allow her to sit there when I was out.

This reply shewed me that Maton was an old hand, and that I had
better give her up if I did not wish to be duped.

I changed the rooms, and we supped pleasantly together, laughing and
talking, and in spite of all her craft Maton did not notice any
change in me.

I remained alone in my new room, and soon heard the voices of
Bellegarde and his merry companions.  I went on to the balcony, but
the curtains of Bellegarde's room were drawn, as if to assure me that
there was no complot.  However, I was not so easily deceived, and I
found afterwards that Mercury had warned Jupiter that Amphytrion had
changed his room.

Next day, a severe headache, a thing from which I seldom suffer, kept
me to the house all day.  I had myself let blood, and my worthy
mother, who came to keep me company, dined with Maton.  My mother had
taken a weakness for the girl, and had often asked me to let her come
and see her, but I had the good sense to refuse this request.  The
next day I was still far from well, and took medicine, and in the
evening, to my horror, I found myself attacked by a fearful disease.
This must be a present from Maton, for I had not known anyone else
since leaving Leopol.  I spent a troubled night, rage and indignation
being my principal emotions; and next morning, coming upon Maton
suddenly, I found everything in the most disgusting state.  The
wretched creature confessed she had been infected for the last six
months, but that she had hoped not to give it me, as she had washed
herself carefully whenever she thought I was going to have to do with
her.

"Wretch, you have poisoned me; but nobody shall know it, as it is by
my own fault, and I am ashamed of it.  Get up, and you shall see how
generous I can be."

She got up, and I had all the linen I had given her packed into a
trunk.  This done, I told my man to take a small room for her at
another inn.  His errand was soon over, and I then told Maton to go
immediately, as I had done with her.  I gave her fifty crowns, and
made her sign a receipt specifying the reason why I had sent her
away, and acknowledging that she had no further claim upon me.  The
conditions were humiliating, and she wished me to soften them down,
but she soon gave in when I told her that unless she signed I would
turn her into the streets as naked as when I found her.

"What am I to do here?  I don't know anyone."

"If you like to return to Breslau I will pay your expenses there."

She made no answer, so I sent her away bag and baggage, and merely
turned my back on her when she went down on her knees to excite my
compassion.

I got rid of her without the slightest feeling of pity, for from what
she had done to me and from what she was preparing to do I considered
her as a mere monster, who would sooner or later have cost me my
life.

I left the inn the following day, and I took a furnished apartment on
the first floor of the house where my mother lived for six months,
and proceeded about my cure.  Everyone asked me what I had done with
my housekeeper, and I said that having no further need of her
services I had sent her away.

A week afterwards my brother John came to tell me that Bellegarde and
five or six of his friends were on the sick list; Maton had certainly
lost no time.

"I am sorry for them, but it's their own fault; why didn't they take
more care?"

"But the girl came to Dresden with you."

"Yes, and I sent her about her business.  It was enough for me to
keep them off while she was under my charge.  Tell them that if they
complain of me they are wrong, and still more wrong to publish their
shame.  Let them learn discretion and get themselves cured in
secrecy, if they do not want sensible men to laugh at them.  Don't
you think I am right?"

"The adventure is not a very honourable one for you."

"I know it, and that's why I say nothing; I am not such a fool as to
proclaim my shame from the housetops.  These friends of yours must be
simpletons indeed; they must have known that I had good reasons for
sending the girl away, and should consequently have been on their
guard.  They deserve what they got, and I hope it may be a lesson to
them."

"They are all astonished at your being well."

"You may comfort them by saying that I have been as badly treated as
they, but that I have held my tongue, not wishing to pass for a
simpleton."

Poor John saw he had been a simpleton himself and departed in
silence.  I put myself under a severe diet, and by the middle of
August my health was re-established.

About this time, Prince Adam Czartoryski's sister came to Dresden,
lodging with Count Bruhl.  I had the honour of paying my court to
her, and I heard from her own mouth that her royal cousin had had the
weakness to let himself be imposed on by calumnies about me.  I told
her that I was of Ariosto's opinion that all the virtues are nothing
worth unless they are covered with the veil of constancy.

"You saw yourself when I supped with you, how his majesty completely
ignored me.  Your highness will be going to Paris next year; you will
meet me there and you can write to the king that if I had been burnt
in effigy I should not venture to shew myself."

The September fair being a great occasion at Leipzig, I went there to
regain my size by eating larks, for which Leipzig is justly famous.
I had played a cautious but a winning game at Dresden, the result of
which had been the gain of some hundreds of ducats, so I was able to
start for Leipzig with a letter of credit for three thousand crowns
on the banker Hohman, an intelligent old man of upwards of eighty.
It was of him I heard that the hair of the Empress of Russia, which
looked a dark brown or even black, had been originally quite fair.
The old banker had seen her at Stettin every day between her seventh
and tenth years, and told me that even then they had begun to comb
her hair with lead combs, and to rub a certain composition into it.
From an early age Catherine had been looked upon as the future bride
of the Duke of Holstein, afterwards the hapless Peter III.  The
Russians are fair as a rule, and so it was thought it that the
reigning family should be dark.

Here I will note down a pleasant adventure I had at Leipzig.  The
Princess of Aremberg had arrived from Vienna, and was staying at the
same hotel as myself.  She took a fancy to go to the fair incognito,
and as she had a large suite she dressed up one of her maids as the
princess, and mingled with her following.  I suppose my readers to be
aware that this princess was witty and beautiful, and that she was
the favourite mistress of the Emperor Francis the First.

I heard of his masquerade, and leaving my hotel at the same time I
followed her till she stopped at a stall, and then going up to her
and addressing her as one would any other maid, I asked if that
(pointing at the false princess) were really the famous Princess of
Aremberg.

"Certainly," she replied.

"I can scarcely believe it, for she is not pretty, and she, has, not
the look nor the manners of a princess."

"Perhaps you are not a good judge of princesses."

"I have seen enough of them anyhow, and to prove that I am a good
judge I say that it is you who ought to be the princess; I would
willingly give a hundred ducats to spend the night with you."

"A hundred ducats!  What would you do if I were to take you at your
word?"

"Try me.  I lodge at the same hotel as you, and if yet can contrive
ways and means, I will give you the money in advance, but not till I
am sure of my prize, for I don't like being taken in."

"Very good.  Say not a word to anyone, but try to speak with me
either before or after supper.  If you are brave enough to face
certain risks, we will spend the night together."

"What is your name?"

"Caroline."

I felt certain it would come to nothing, but I was glad to have
amused the princess, and to have let her know that I appreciated her
beauties, and I resolved to go on with the part I was playing.
About supper-time I began a promenade near the princess's apartments,
stopping every now and then in front of the room where her women were
sitting, till one of them came out to ask me if I wanted anything.

"I want to speak for a moment to one of your companions to whom I had
the pleasure of talking at the fair."

"You mean Caroline, I expect?"

"Yes."

"She is waiting on the princess, but she will be out in half an
hour."

I spent this half hour in my own room, and then returned to dance
attendance.  Before long the same maid to whom I had spoken came up
to me and told me to wait in a closet which she shewed me, telling me
that Caroline would be there before long.  I went into the closet,
which was small, dark, and uncomfortable.  I was soon joined by a
woman.  This time I was sure it was the real Caroline, but I said
nothing.

She came, in, took my hand, and told me that if I would wait there
she would come to me as soon as her mistress was in bed.

"Without any light?"

"Of course, or else the people of the house would notice it, and I
should not like that."

"I cannot do anything without light, charming Caroline; and besides,
this closet is not a very nice place to pass five or six hours.
There is another alternative, the first room above is mine.  I shall
be alone, and I swear to you that no one shall come in; come up and
make me happy; I have got the hundred ducats here."


"Impossible!  I dare not go upstairs for a million ducats."

"So much the worse for you, as I am not going to stay in this hole
which "has only a chair in it, if you offer me a million and a half.
Farewell, sweet Caroline."

"Wait a moment; let me go out first."

The sly puss went out quickly enough, but I was as sharp as she, and
trod on the tail of her dress so that she could not shut the door
after her.  So we went out together, and I left her at the door,
saying,--

"Good night, Caroline, you see it was no use."

I went to bed well pleased with the incident.  The princess, it was
plain, had intended to make me pass the night in the hole of a
closet, as a punishment for having dared to ask the mistress of an
emperor to sleep with me for a hundred crowns.

Two days later, as I was buying a pair of lace cuffs, the princess
came into the shop with Count Zinzendorf, whom I had known at Paris
twelve years before.  just as I was making way for the lady the count
recognized me, and asked me if I knew anything about the Casanova
that had fought the duel at Warsaw.

"Alas! count, I am that Casanova, and here is my arm still in a
sling."

"I congratulate you, my dear fellow; I should like to hear about it."

With these words he introduced me to the princess, asking her if she
had heard of the duel.

"Yes; I heard something about it in the papers.  So this is the hero
of the tale.  Delighted to make your acquaintance."

The princess spoke with great kindness, but with the cool politeness
of the Court.  She did not give me the slightest sign of recognition,
and of course I imitated her in her reserve.

I visited the count in the afternoon, and he begged me to come and
see the princess, who would be delighted to hear the account of my
duel from my own lips, and I followed him to her apartment with
pleasure.  The princess listened to my narrative in stately sort, and
her women never looked at me.  She went away the day after, and the
story went no farther.

Towards the end of the fair I received a very unexpected visit from
the fair Madame Castelbajac.  I was just sitting down to table to eat
a dozen larks, when she made her appearance.

"What, madam, you here!"

"Yes, to my sorrow.  I have been here for the last three weeks, and
have seen you several times, but you have always avoided us."

"Who are 'us'?"

"Schwerin and myself"

"Schwerin is here, is he?"

"Yes; and in prison on account of a forged bill.  I am sure I do not
know what they will do to the poor wretch.  He would have been wise
to have fled, but it seems as if he wanted to get hanged."

"And you have been with him ever since you left England? that is,
three years ago."

"Exactly.  Our occupation is robbing, cheating, and escaping from one
land to another.  Never was a woman so unhappy as I."

"For how much is the forged bill?"

"For three hundred crowns.  Do a generous action M. Casanova, and let
bygones be bygones; deliver the poor wretch from the gallows and me
from death, for if he is hanged I shall kill myself."

"Indeed, madam, he may hang for me, for he did his best to send me to
the gallows with his forged bills; but I confess I pity you.  So
much, indeed, that I invite you to come to Dresden with me the day
after to-morrow, and I promise to give you three hundred crowns as
soon as Schwerin has undergone the extreme penalty of the law.  I
can't understand how a woman like you can have fallen in love with a
man that has neither face, nor talents, nor wit, nor fortune, for all
that he has to boast of is his name of Schwerin."

"I confess, to my shame, that I never loved him.  Ever since the
other rogue, Castelbajac--who, by the way, was never married to me--
made me know him, I have only lived with him by force, though his
tears and his despairs have excited my compassion.  If destiny had
given me an honest man in his stead, I would have forsaken him long
ago, for sooner or later he will be the death of me."

"Where do you live?"

"Nowhere.  I have been turned out into the street with nothing but
the clothes on my back.  Have compassion on me."

With these words the hapless woman threw herself at my knees and
burst into tears.  I was much affected.  The waiter of the inn stood
staring with amazement till I told him to go out.  I may safely say
that this woman was one of the most handsome in France; she was
probably about twenty-six years old.  She had been the wife of a
druggist of Montpellier, and had been so unfortunate as to let
Castelbajac seduce her.  At London her beauty had produced no
impression on me, my heart was another's; nevertheless, she was made
to seduce the heart of man.

I raised her from her knees, and said I felt inclined to help her,
but that in the first place she must calm herself, and in the second
share my supper.  The waiter brought another bed and put it in my
room, without receiving any orders to do so; this made me feel
inclined to laugh.

The appetite with which the poor woman ate, despite her sorrow,
reminded me of the matron of Ephesus.  When supper was over I gave
her her choice: she might either stay in Leipzig and fare as best she
might, or I would reclaim her effects, take her with me to Dresden,
and pay her a hundred gold ducats as soon as I could be certain that
she would not give the money to the wretch who had reduced her to
such an extremity.  She did not ask much time for reflection.  She
said that it would be no good for her to stay in Leipzig, for she
could do nothing for the wretched Schwerin or even keep herself for a
day, for she had not got a farthing.  She would have to beg or to
become a prostitute, and she could not make up her mind to either
course.

"Indeed," she concluded, "if you were to give me the hundred ducats
this moment, and I used them to free Schwerin, I should be no better
off than before; so I accept your generous offer thankfully."

I embraced her, promised to get back what her landlord had seized for
rent, and then begged her to go to bed, as she was in need of rest.

"I see," she answered, "that either out of liking or for politeness'
sake you will ask me for those favours which I should be only too
happy to grant, but if I allowed that it would be a bad return indeed
for your kindness.  Look at my linen, and behold in what a state that
unhappy wretch has left me!"

I saw that I ran the risk of being infected again, and thanked her
for warning me of the danger I ran.  In spite of her faults she was a
woman of feeling, and had an excellent heart, and from these good
qualitites of hers proceeded all her misfortunes.

The next morning I arranged for the redemption of her effects, which
cost me sixty crowns of Saxony, and in the afternoon the poor woman
saw herself once more in possession of her belongings, which she had
thought never to see again.  She seemed profoundly grateful, and
deplored her state, which hindered her from proving the warmth of her
feelings.

Such is the way of women: a grateful woman has only one way of
shewing her gratitude, and that is to surrender herself without
reserve.  A man is different, but we are differently constituted; a
man is made to give and a woman to receive.

The next day, a short while before we left, the broker I had employed
in the redemption of the lady's effects, told me that the banker,
whom Schwerin had cheated, was going to send an express to Berlin, to
enquire whether the king would object to Count Schwerin's being
proceeded against with the utmost rigour of the law.

"Alas!" cried his late mistress, "that's what he was most afraid of.
It's all up with him.  The King of Prussia will pay his debts, but he
will end his days at Spandau.  Why didn't they put him there before I
ever knew him?"

She left Leipzig with me, and our appearance at Dresden caused a good
deal of surprise.  She was not a mere girl, like Maton; she had a
good appearance, and a modest yet distinguished manner.  I called her
Countess Blasin, and introduced her to my mother and relations, and
put her in my best room.  I summoned the doctor who had treated me,
and made him swear not to disclose the countess's state, but to tell
everyone that he came to see me.  I took her to the theatre, and it
was my humour to have her regarded as a person of distinction.  Good
treatment soon restored her to health, and by the end of November she
believed herself in a state to reward me for my kindness.

The wedding was a secret one, but none the less pleasant; and as if
by way of wedding present the next day I heard that the King of
Prussia had paid Schwerin's debts, and had had him brought to Berlin
under a strong escort.  If he is alive, the rascal is at Spandau to
this day.

The time had come for me to pay her the hundred ducats.  I told her
frankly that I was obliged to go to Portugal, and that I could not
make my appearance there in company with a pretty woman without
failing in my project.  I added that my means would not allow me to
pay double expenses for so long a journey.

She had received too many proofs of my love to think for a moment
that I had got tired of her, and wanted to be on with some other
woman.  She told me that she owed everything to me, while I owed
nothing to her; and that all she asked of me was to enable her to
return to Montpellier.

"I have relations there," said she, "who will be glad to see me, and
I hope that my husband will let me return to him.  I am the Prodigal
Son, and I hope to find in him the forgiving father."

I told her I would do my utmost to send her home in safety and
comfort.

Towards the middle of December I left Dresden with Madame Blasin.  My
purse only contained four hundred ducats, for I had had a run of bad
luck at play; and the journey to Leipzig had cost me altogether three
hundred ducats.  I told my mistress nothing of all this, for my only
thought was how to please her.

We stayed a short while at Prague, and reached Vienna on Christmas
Day.  We put up at the "Red Bull," the Countess Blasin (who had been
transformed into a milliner) in one room, and I in another, so that
we might pass for strangers while continuing our intimacy.

The next morning, as we were taking coffee together, two individuals
came into the room, and asked the rude question,--

"Who are you, madam?"

"My name is Blasin."

"Who is this gentleman?"

"You had better ask him."

"What are you doing at Vienna?"

"Taking coffee.  I should have thought you could have seen that for
yourselves."

"If the gentleman is not your husband, you will leave the town within
twenty-four hours."

"The gentleman is my friend, and not my husband; and I shall leave
Vienna exactly when I choose, unless you make me go away by force."

"Very good.  We are aware, sir, that you have a separate room, but
that makes no difference."

Thereupon one of the policemen entered my room, I following him.

"What do you want here?" said I.

"I am looking at your bed, and I can see you have not slept in it.
That's enough."

"The devil!  What business have you here at all, and who authorizes
such disgraceful proceedings?"

He made no reply, but returned to Madame Blasin's room, where they
both ordered her to leave Vienna in the course of twenty-four hours,
and then they both left us.

"Dress yourself," said I to her, "and tell the French ambassador the
whole story.  Tell him that you are a milliner, Blasin by name, and
that all you want is to go from here to Strasburg, and from there to
Montpellier."

While she was dressing I ordered a carriage and a servant to be in
attendance.  She returned in an hour's time, and said the ambassador
had assured her that she would be left alone, and need not leave
Vienna till she thought fit.  I took her to mass in triumph, and
then, as the weather was bad, we spent the rest of the day in eating
and drinking and sitting by the fire.

At eight o'clock in the evening the landlord came up and said very
politely that he had been ordered by the police to give the lady a
room at some distance from mine, and that he was obliged to obey.

"I am quite ready to change my room," said Madame Blasin, with a
smile.

"Is the lady to sup alone?" I asked.

"I have received no instructions on that point."

"Then I will sup with her, and I hope you will treat us well."

"You shall be well served, sir."

In spite of the detestable and tyrannical police we spent the last
four days and nights together in the closest intimacy.  When she left
I wanted her to take fifty Louis; but she would only have thirty,
saying that she could travel to Montpellier on that sum, and have
money in her pocket when she got there.  Our parting was an affecting
one.  She wrote to me from Strasburg, and we shall hear of her again
when I describe my visit to Montpellier.

The first day of the year 1767 I took an apartment in the house of a
certain Mr. Schroder, and I took letters of introduction to Madame de
Salmor and Madame de Stahremberg.  I then called on the elder
Calsabigi, who was in the service of Prince Kaunitz.

This Calsabigi, whose whole body was one mass of eruption, always
worked in bed, and the minister, his master, went to see him almost
every day.  I went constantly to the theatre, where Madame Vestris
was dancing.  On January the 7th or 8th, I saw the empress dowager
come to the theatre dressed in black; she was received with applause,
as this was the first appearance she had made since the death of her
husband.  At Vienna I met the Comte de la Perouse, who was trying to
induce the empress to give him half a million of florins, which
Charles VI.  owed his father.  Through him I made the acquaintance of
the Spaniard Las Casas, a man of intelligence, and, what is a rare
thing in a Spaniard, free from prejudices.  I also met at the count's
house the Venetian Uccelli, with whom I had been at St. Cyprian's
College at Muran; he was, at the time of which I write, secretary to
the ambassador, Polo Renieri.  This gentleman had a great esteem for
me, but my affair with the State Inquisitors prevented him from
receiving me.  My friend Campioni arrived at this date from Warsaw;
he had passed through Cracovia.  I accommodated him in my apartment
with great pleasure.  He had an engagement at London, but to my great
delight he was able to spend a couple of months with me.

Prince Charles of Courland, who had been at Venice and had been well
received by M. de Bragadin and my other friends, had been in Vienna
and had left it a fortnight before my arrival to return to Venice.
Prince Charles wrote to tell me that there was no bounds to the care
and kindness of my Venetian friends, and that he would be grateful to
me for all his days.

I lived very quietly at Vienna; my health was good, and I thought of
nothing but my journey to Portugal, which I intended to take place in
the spring.  I saw no company of any kind, whether good or ill.
I often called on Calsabigi, who made a parade of his Atheism, and
slandered my friend Metastasio, who dispised him.  Calsabigi knew it
and laughed at him; he was a profound politician and the right hand
of Prince Kaunitz.

One day after dinner, as I was sitting at table with my friend
Campioni, a pretty little girl, between twelve and thirteen, as I
should imagine, came into my room with mingled boldness and fear, and
made me a low bow.  I asked her what she wanted, and she replied in
Latin verse to the effect that her mother was in the next room, and
that if I liked she would come in.  I replied in Latin prose that I
did not care about seeing her mother, telling her my reasons with
great plainness.  She replied with four Latin lines, but as they were
not to the point I could see that she had learnt them by heart, and
repeated them like a parrot.  She went on-still in Latin verse--to
tell me that her mother must come in or else the authorities might
think I was abusing her.

This last phrase was uttered with all the directness of the Latin
style.  It made me burst out laughing, and I felt inclined to explain
to her what she had said in her own language.  The little slut told
me she was a Venetian, and this putting me at my ease I told her that
the authorities would never suspect her of doing such a thing as she
was too young.  At this the girl seemed to reflect a moment, and then
recited some verses from the Priapeia to the effect that unripe fruit
is often more piquant than that which is ripe.  This was enough to
set me on fire, and Campioni, seeing that he was not wanted, went
back to his room.

I drew her gently to me and asked her if her father was at Vienna.
She said yes, and instead of repulsing my caresses she proceeded to
accompany my actions with the recital of erotic verses.  I sent her
away with a fee of two ducats, but before she went she gave me her
address written in German with four Latin verses beneath, stating
that her bedfellow would find her either Hebe or Ganymede, according
to his liking.

I could not help admiring the ingenuity of her father, who thus
contrived to make a living out of his daughters.  She was a pretty
girl enough, but at Vienna pretty girls are so common that they often
have to starve in spite of their charms.  The Latin verses had been
thrown in as an attraction in this case, but I did not think she
would find it very remunerative in Vienna.

Next evening my evil genius made me go and seek her out at the
address she had given me.  Although I was forty-two years old, in
spite of the experience I had had, I was so foolish as to go alone.
The girl saw me coming from the window, and guessing that I was
looking for her, she came down and shewed me in.  I went in, I went
upstairs, and when I found myself in the presence of the wretch
Pocchini my blood froze in my veins.  A feeling of false shame
prevented my retracing my steps, as it might have looked as if I had
been afraid.  In the same room were his pretended wife, Catina, two
Sclavonic-looking assassins, and the decoy-duck.  I saw that this was
not a laughing matter, so I dissembled to the best of my ability, and
made up my mind to leave the place in five minutes' time.

Pocchini, swearing and blaspheming, began to reproach me with the
manner in which I had treated him in England, and said that his time
had come, and that my life was in his hands.  One of the two Sclavs
broke in, and said we must make friends, and so made me sit down,
opened a bottle, and said we must drink together.  I tried to put as
good a face upon it as I could, but I begged to be excused, on which
Pocchini swore that I was afraid of having to pay for the bottle of
wine.

"You are mistaken," said I; "I am quite ready to pay."

I put my hand in my pocket to take out a ducat without drawing out my
purse, but the Sclav told me I need not be afraid, as I was amongst
honest people.  Again shame made me yield, and as I had some
difficulty in extracting my purse, the Sclav kindly did it for me.
Pocchini immediately snatched it from his hands, and said he should
keep it as part compensation for all I had made him endure.

I saw that it was a concerted scheme, and said with a smile that he
could do as he liked, and so I rose to leave them.  The Sclav said we
must embrace each other, and on my declaring that to be unnecessary,
he and his comrade drew their sabres, and I thought myself undone.
Without more ado, I hastened to embrace them.  To my astonishment
they let me go, and I went home in a grievous state, and not knowing
what else to do went to bed.




End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of MEMOIRES OF JACQUES CASANOVA
IN LONDON AND MOSCOW, Vol. 5e, RUSSIA AND POLAND
by Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

