The carriage was ready to take me away, and everyone was waiting to see me off, but my eyes filled with tears.  I sought for Clementine in vain; she had vanished.  I pretended to have forgotten something in my room, and going to my Hebe’s chamber I found her in a terrible state, choking with sobs.  I pressed her to my breast, and mingled my tears with hers; and then laying her gently in her bed, and snatching a last kiss from her trembling lips, I tore myself away from a place full of such sweet and agonizing memories.

I thanked and embraced everyone, the good canon amongst others, and whispering to Eleanore to see to her sister I jumped into the carriage beside the count.  We remained perfectly silent, and slept nearly the whole of the way.  We found the Marquis Triulzi and the countess together, and the former immediately sent for a dinner for four.  I was not much astonished to find that the countess had found out about our being at Milan, and at first she seemed inclined to let us feel the weight of her anger; but the count, always fertile in expedients, told her that it was delicacy on my part not to tell her, as I was afraid she would be put out with such an incursion of visitors.

At dinner I said that I should soon be leaving for Genoa, and for my sorrow the marquis gave me a letter of introduction to the notorious Signora Isola-Bella, while the countess gave me a letter to her kinsman the Bishop of Tortona.

My arrival at Milan was well-timed; Therese was on the point of going to Palermo, and I just succeeded in seeing her before she left.  I talked to her of the wish of Cesarino to go to sea, and I did all in my power to make her yield to his inclinations.

“I am leaving him at Milan,” said she.  “I know how he got this idea into his head, but I will never give my consent.  I hope I shall find him wiser by the time I come back.”

She was mistaken.  My son never altered his mind, and in fifteen years my readers will hear more of him.

I settled my accounts with Greppi and took two bills of exchange on Marseilles, and one of ten thousand francs on Genoa, where I did not think I would have to spend much money.  In spite of my luck at play, I was poorer by a thousand sequins when I left Milan than when I came there; but my extravagant expenditure must be taken into account.

I spent all my afternoons with the fair Marchioness sometimes alone and sometimes with her cousin, but with my mind full of grief for Clementine she no longer charmed me as she had done three weeks ago.

I had no need to make any mystery about the young lady I was going to take with me, so I sent Clairmont for her small trunk, and at eight o’clock on the morning of my departure she waited on me at the count’s.  I kissed the hand of the woman who had attempted my life, and thanked her for her hospitality, to which I attributed the good reception I had had at Milan.  I then thanked the count, who said once more that he should never cease to be grateful to me, and thus I left Milan on the 20th of March, 1763.  I never re-visited that splendid capital.