“Sir,” said he, “I am the judge.”

“Judge and plaintiff too, as far as I can see.”

He wrote in his book, confirming the sentence, and mulcting me in six francs for the costs of the case.

“But if your daughter had not tempted me.” said I, “I should not have danced; she is therefore as guilty as I.”

“Very true, sir; here is a Louis for her.”  So saying he took a Louis out of his pocket, put it into a desk beside him, and said; “Now yours.”

I began to laugh, paid my fine, and put off my departure till the morrow.

As I was going to Lucerne I saw the apostolic nuncio (who invited me to dinner), and at Fribourg Comte d’Afri’s young and charming wife; but at ten leagues from Soleure I was a witness of the following curious circumstances.

I was stopping the night in a village, and had made friends with the surgeon, whom I had found at the inn, and while supper, which he was to share with me, was getting ready, we walked about the village together.  It was in the dusk of the evening, and at a distance of a hundred paces I saw a man climbing up the wall of a house, and finally vanishing through a window on the first floor.

“That’s a robber,” said I, pointing him out to the surgeon.  He laughed and said,—­

“The custom may astonish you, but it is a common one in many parts of Switzerland.  The man you have just seen is a young lover who is going to pass the night with his future bride.  Next morning he will leave more ardent than before, as she will not allow him to go too far.  If she was weak enough to yield to his desires he would probably decline to marry her, and she would find it difficult to get married at all.”

At Soleure I found a letter from Madame d’Urfe, with an enclosure from the Duc de Choiseul to the ambassador, M. de Chavigni.  It was sealed, but the duke’s name was written below the address.

I made a Court toilet, took a coach, and went to call on the ambassador.  His excellency was not at home, so I left my card and the letter.  It was a feast-day, and I went to high mass, not so much, I confess, to seek for God as for my charmer, but she was not there.  After service I walked around the town, and on my return found an officer who asked me to dinner at the ambassador’s.

Madame d’Urfe said that on the receipt of my letter she had gone straightway to Versailles, and that with the help of Madame de Grammont she had got me an introduction of the kind I wanted.  This was good news for me, as I desired to cut an imposing figure at Soleure.  I had plenty of money, and I knew that this magic metal glittered in the eyes of all.  M. de Chavigni had been ambassador at Venice thirty years before, and I knew a number of anecdotes about his adventures there, and I was eager to see what I could make out of him.