Two years later I met Acton at Bologna, and admired the beauty whom he considered and treated as his wife.  She held on her knees a fine little Acton.

I left Turin for Parma with a Venetian who, like myself, was an exile from his country.  He had turned actor to gain a livelihood; and was going to Parma with two actresses, one of whom was interesting.  As soon as I found out who he was, we became friends, and he would have gladly made me a partner in all his amusements, by the way, if I had been in the humour to join him.

This journey to Leghorn was undertaken under the influence of chimerical ideas.  I thought I might be useful to Count Orloff, in the conquest he was going to make, as it was said, of Constantinople.  I fancied that it had been decreed by fate that without me he could never pass through the Dardanelles.  In spite of the wild ideas with which my mind was occupied, I conceived a warm friendship for my travelling companion, whose name was Angelo Bentivoglio.  The Government never forgave him a certain crime, which to the philosophic eye appears a mere trifle.  In four years later, when I describe my stay at Venice, I shall give some further account of him.

About noon we reached Parma, and I bade adieu to Bentivoglio and his friends.  The Court was at Colorno, but having nothing to gain from this mockery of a court, and wishing to leave for Bologna the next morning, I asked Dubois-Chateleraux, Chief of the Mint, and a talented though vain man, to give me some dinner.  The reader will remember that I had known him twenty two years before, when I was in love with Henriette.  He was delighted to see me, and seemed to set great store by my politeness in giving him the benefit of my short stay at Parma.  I told him that Count Orloff was waiting for me at Leghorn, and that I was obliged to travel day and night.

“He will be setting sail before long,” said he; “I have advices from Leghorn to that effect.”

I said in a mysterious tone of voice that he would not sail without me, and I could see that my host treated me with increased respect after this.  He wanted to discuss the Russian Expedition, but my air of reserve made him change the conversation.

At dinner we talked a good deal about Henriette, whom he said he had succeeded in finding out; but though he spoke of her with great respect, I took care not to give him any information on the subject.  He spent the whole afternoon in uttering complaints against the sovereigns of Europe, the King of Prussia excepted, as he had made him a baron, though I never could make out why.

He cursed the Duke of Parma who persisted in retaining his services, although there was no mint in existence in the duchy, and his talents were consequently wasted there.

I listened to all his complaints, and agreed that Louis XV. had been ungrateful in not conferring the Order of St. Michael on him; that Venice had rewarded his services very shabbily; that Spain was stingy, and Naples devoid of honesty, etc., etc.  When he had finished, I asked him if he could give me a bill on a banker for fifty sequins.