Prince Charles of Courland had started for Venice, where I had given him letters for my illustrious friends who would make his visit a pleasant one.  The English ambassador who had given me an introduction to Prince Adam had just arrived at Warsaw.  I dined with him at the prince’s house, and the king signified his wish to be of the party.  I heard a good deal of conversation about Madame de Geoffrin, an old sweetheart of the king’s whom he had just summoned to Warsaw.  The Polish monarch, of whom I cannot speak in too favourable terms, was yet weak enough to listen to the slanderous reports against me, and refused to make my fortune.  I had the pleasure of convincing him that he was mistaken, but I will speak of this later on.

I arrived at Leopol the sixth day after I had left Warsaw, having stopped a couple of days at Prince Zamoiski’s; he had forty thousand ducats a-year, but also the falling sickness.

“I would give all my goods,” said he, “to be cured.”

I pitied his young wife.  She was very fond of him, and yet had to deny him, for his disease always came on him in moments of amorous excitement.  She had the bitter task of constantly refusing him, and even of running away if he pressed her hard.  This great nobleman, who died soon after, lodged me in a splendid room utterly devoid of furniture.  This is the Polish custom; one is supposed to bring one’s furniture with one.

At Leopol I put up, at an hotel, but I soon had to move from thence to take up my abode with the famous Kaminska, the deadly foe of Branicki, the king, and all that party.  She was very rich, but she has since been ruined by conspiracies.  She entertained me sumptuously for a week, but the visit was agreeable to neither side, as she could only speak Polish and German.  From Leopol I proceeded to a small town, the name of which I forget (the Polish names are very crabbed) to take an introduction from Prince Lubomirski to Joseph Rzewuski, a little old man who wore a long beard as a sign of mourning for the innovations that were being introduced into his country.  He was rich, learned, superstitiously religious, and polite exceedingly.  I stayed with him for three days.  He was the commander of a stronghold containing a garrison of five hundred men.

On the first day, as I was in his room with some other officers, about eleven o’clock in the morning, another officer came in, whispered to Rzewuski, and then came up to me and whispered in my ear, “Venice and St. Mark.”

“St. Mark,” I answered aloud, “is the patron saint and protector of Venice,” and everybody began to laugh.

It dawned upon me that “Venice and St. Mark” was the watchword, and I began to apologize profusely, and the word was changed.

The old commander spoke to me with great politeness.  He never went to Court, but he had resolved on going to the Diet to oppose the Russian party with all his might.  The poor man, a Pole of the true old leaven, was one of the four whom Repnin arrested and sent to Siberia.