I thought then, and I think now, that this day was one of the happiest I have ever spent.

CHAPTER VII

The Corticelli—­The Jew Manager Beaten—­The False Charles Ivanoff and the Trick He Played Me—­I Am Ordered to Leave Tuscany—­I Arrive at Rome—­My Brother Jean

At nine o’clock the next morning, the Abbe Gama was announced.  The first thing he did was to shed tears of joy (as he said) at seeing me so well and prosperous after so many years.  The reader will guess that the abbe addressed me in the most flattering terms, and perhaps he may know that one may be clever, experienced in the ways of the world, and even distrustful of flattery, but yet one’s self-love, ever on the watch, listens to the flatterer, and thinks him pleasant.  This polite and pleasant abbe, who had become extremely crafty from having lived all his days amongst the high dignitaries at the court of the ’Servus Servorum Dei’ (the best school of strategy), was not altogether an ill-disposed man, but both his disposition and his profession conspired to make him inquisitive; in fine, such as I have depicted him in the first volume of these Memoirs.  He wanted to hear my adventures, and did not wait for me to ask him to tell his story.  He told me at great length the various incidents in his life for the seventeen years in which we had not seen one another.  He had left the service of the King of Spain for that of the King of Portugal, he was secretary of embassy to the Commander Almada, and he had been obliged to leave Rome because the Pope Rezzonico would not allow the King of Portugal to punish certain worthy Jesuit assassins, who had only broken his arm as it happened, but who had none the less meant to take his life.  Thus, Gama was staying in Italy corresponding with Almada and the famous Carvalho, waiting for the dispute to be finished before he returned to Rome.  In point of fact this was the only substantial incident in the abbe’s story, but he worked in so many episodes of no consequence that it lasted for an hour.  No doubt he wished me to shew my gratitude by telling him all my adventures without reserve; but the upshot of it was that we both shewed ourselves true diplomatists, he in lengthening his story, I in shortening mine, while I could not help feeling some enjoyment in baulking the curiosity of my cassocked friend.

“What are you going to do in Rome?” said he, indifferently.

“I am going to beg the Pope to use his influence in my favour with the State Inquisitors at Venice.”

It was not the truth, but one lie is as good as another, and if I had said I was only going for amusement’s sake he would not have believed me.  To tell the truth to an unbelieving man is to prostitute, to murder it.  He then begged me to enter into a correspondence with him, and as that bound me to nothing I agreed to do so.

“I can give you a mark of my friendship,” said he, “by introducing you to the Marquis de Botta-Adamo, Governor of Tuscany; he is supposed to be a friend of the regent’s.”