“The French,” he added, “entertain the very strange belief that it is possible to adapt poetry to music already composed.”

And he made on that subject this very philosophical remark: 

“You might just as well say to a sculptor, ’Here is a piece of marble, make a Venus, and let her expression be shewn before the features are chiselled.’”

I went to the Imperial Library, and was much surprised to meet De la Haye in the company of two Poles, and a young Venetian whom his father had entrusted to him to complete his education.  I believed him to be in Poland, and as the meeting recalled interesting recollections I was pleased to see him.  I embraced him repeatedly with real pleasure.

He told me that he was in Vienna on business, and that he would go to Venice during the summer.  We paid one another several visits, and hearing that I was rather short of money he lent me fifty ducats, which I returned a short time after.  He told me that Bavois was already lieutenant-colonel in the Venetian army, and the news afforded me great pleasure.  He had been fortunate enough to be appointed adjutant-general by M. Morosini, who, after his return from his embassy in France, had made him Commissary of the Borders.  I was delighted to hear of the happiness and success of two men who certainly could not help acknowledging me as the original cause of their good fortune.  In Vienna I acquired the certainty of De la Haye being a Jesuit, but he would not let anyone allude to the subject.

Not knowing where to go, and longing for some recreation, I went to the rehearsal of the opera which was to be performed after Easter, and met Bodin, the first dancer, who had married the handsome Jeoffroi, whom I had seen in Turin.  I likewise met in the same place Campioni, the husband of the beautiful Ancilla.  He told me that he had been compelled to apply for a divorce because she dishonoured him too publicly.  Campioni was at the same time a great dancer and a great gambler.  I took up my lodgings with him.

In Vienna everything is beautiful; money was then very plentiful, and luxury very great; but the severity of the empress made the worship of Venus difficult, particularly for strangers.  A legion of vile spies, who were decorated with the fine title of Commissaries of Chastity, were the merciless tormentors of all the girls.  The empress did not practise the sublime virtue of tolerance for what is called illegitimate love, and in her excessive devotion she thought that her persecutions of the most natural inclinations in man and woman were very agreeable to God.  Holding in her imperial hands the register of cardinal sins, she fancied that she could be indulgent for six of them, and keep all her severity for the seventh, lewdness, which in her estimation could not be forgiven.