“I wish you a pleasant journey; but what do you hope to do in that land?”

“What I hoped to do in this land, namely, to please the sovereign.”

“Have you got an introduction to the empress?”

“No, but I have an introduction to a banker.”

“Ah! that’s much better.  If you pass through Prussia on your return I shall be delighted to hear of your adventures in Russia.”

“Farewell, sire.”

Such was the second interview I had with this great king, whom I never saw again.

After I had taken leave of all my friends I applied to Baron Treidel, who gave me a letter for M. de Kaiserling, lord-chancellor at Mitau, and another letter for his sister, the Duchess of Courland, and I spent the last night with the charming Madame Denis.  She bought my post-chaise, and I started with two hundred ducats in my purse.  This would have been ample for the whole journey if I had not been so foolish as to reduce it by half at a party of pleasure with some young merchants at Dantzic.  I was thus unable to stay a few days at Koenigsberg, though I had a letter to Field-Marshal von Lewald, who was the governor of the place.  I could only stay one day to dine with this pleasant old soldier, who gave me a letter for his friend General Woiakoff, the Governor of Riga.

I found I was rich enough to arrive at Mitau in state, and I therefore took a carriage and six, and reached my destination in three days.  At the inn where I put up I found a Florentine artiste named Bregonei, who overwhelmed me with caresses, telling me that I had loved her when I was a boy and wore the cassock.  I saw her six years later at Florence, where she was living with Madame Denis.

The day after my departure from Memel, I was accosted in the open country by a man whom I recognized as a Jew.  He informed me that I was on Polish territory, and that I must pay duty on whatever merchandise I had with me.

“I am no merchant,” said I, “and you will get nothing out of me.”

“I have the right to examine your effects,” replied the Israelite, “and I mean to make use of it.”

“You are a madman,” I exclaimed, and I ordered the postillion to whip him off.

But the Jew ran and seized the fore horses by the bridle and stopped us, and the postillion, instead of whipping him, waited with Teutonic calm for me to come and send the Jew away.  I was in a furious rage, and leaping out with my cane in one hand and a pistol in the other I soon put the Jew to flight after applying about a dozen good sound blows to his back.  I noticed that during the combat my fellow-traveller, my Archimedes-in-ordinary, who had been asleep all the way, did not offer to stir.  I reproached him for his cowardice; but he told me that he did not want the Jew to say that we had set on him two to one.

I arrived at Mitau two days after this burlesque adventure and got down at the inn facing the castle.  I had only three ducats left.