I left Cologne about the middle of March, and I stopped at Bonn, to present my respects to the Elector, but he was away.  I dined with Count Verita and the Abbe Scampar, a favourite of the Elector’s.  After dinner the count gave me a letter of introduction to a canoness at Coblentz, of whom he spoke in very high terms.  That obliged me to stop at Coblentz; but when I got down at the inn, I found that the canoness was at Manheim, while in her stead I encountered an actress named Toscani, who was going to Stuttgart with her young and pretty daughter.  She was on her way from Paris, where her daughter had been learning character-dancing with the famous Vestris.  I had known her at Paris, but had not seen much of her, though I had given her a little spaniel dog, which was the joy of her daughter.  This daughter was a perfect jewel, who had very little difficulty in persuading me to come with them to Stuttgart, where I expected, for other reasons, to have a very pleasant stay.  The mother was impatient to know what the duke would think of her daughter, for she had destined her from her childhood to serve the pleasures of this voluptuous prince, who, though he had a titular mistress, was fond of experimenting with all the ballet-girls who took his fancy.

We made up a little supper-party, and it may be guessed that two of us belonging to the boards the conversation was not exactly a course in moral theology.  The Toscani told me that her daughter was a neophyte, and that she had made up her mind not to let the duke touch her till he had dismissed his reigning mistress, whose place she was designed to take.  The mistress in question was a dancer named Gardella, daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose name has been mentioned in my first volume—­in fine, she was the wife of Michel d’Agata, whom I found at Munich fleeing from the terrible Leads, where I myself languished for so long.

As I seemed to doubt the mother’s assertion, and threw out some rather broad hints to the effect that I believed that the first bloom had been plucked at Paris, and that the Duke of Wurtemburg would only have the second, their vanity was touched; and on my proposing to verify the matter with my own eyes it was solemnly agreed that this ceremony should take place the next day.  They kept their promise, and I was pleasantly engaged for two hours the next morning, and was at last obliged to extinguish in the mother the flames her daughter had kindled in my breast.

Although the Toscani was young enough, she would have found me ice if her daughter had been able to satisfy my desires, but she did not trust me well enough to leave us alone together.  As it was she was well satisfied.