“What are you doing at Rome?  Where’s my Lord O’Callaghan?”

“He’s in the next room, but as his father is dead his title is now Earl of Lismore.  You know he was an adherent of the Pretender’s.  I left Paris with him, well enough pleased at being able to come to Rome without its costing me anything.”

“Then the earl is a rich man now?”

“Not exactly; but he will be, as he is his father’s heir, and the old earl left an immense fortune.  It is true that it is all confiscated, but that is nothing, as his claims are irresistible.”

“In short, he is rich in claims and rich in the future; but how did he get himself made a knight of one of the French king’s orders?”

“You’re joking.  That is the blue ribbon of the Order of St. Michael, of which the late Elector of Cologne was grand master.  As you know, my lord plays exquisitely on the violin, and when he was at Bonn he played the Elector a concerto by Tartini.  The prince could not find words in which to express the pleasure of my lord’s performance, and gave him the ribbon you have seen.”

“A fine present, doubtless.”

“You don’t know what pleasure it gave my lord, for when we go back to Paris everybody will take it for the Order of the Holy Ghost.”

We passed into a large room, where we found the earl with the party he had asked to supper.  As soon as he saw me he embraced me, called me his dear friend, and named his guests.  There were seven or eight girls, all of them pretty, three or four castrati who played women’s parts in the Roman theatre, and five or six abbes, the husband of every wife and the wives of every husband, who boasted of their wickedness, and challenged the girls to be more shameless than they.  The girls were not common courtezans, but past mistresses of music, painting, and vice considered as a fine art.  The kind of society may be imagined when I say that I found myself a perfect novice amongst them.

“Where are you going, prince?” said the earl to a respectable-looking man who was making for the door.

“I don’t feel well, my lord.  I think I must go out.”

“What prince is that?” said I.

“The Prince de Chimai.  He is a sub-deacon, and is endeavouring to gain permission to marry, lest his family should become extinct.”

“I admire his prudence or his delicacy, but I am afraid I should not imitate him.”

There were twenty-four of us at table, and it is no exaggeration to say that we emptied a hundred bottles of the choicest wines.  Everybody was drunk, with the exception of myself and the poet Poinsinet, who had taken nothing but water.  The company rose from table, and then began a foul orgy which I should never have conceived possible, and which no pen could describe, though possibly a seasoned profligate might get some idea of it.

A castrato and a girl of almost equal height proposed to strip in an adjoining room, and to lie on their backs, in the same bed with their faces covered.  They challenged us all to guess which was which.