At about the same time a friend of Baron de St. Heleine arrived from St. Petersburg on his way to Warsaw.  His name was Marquis Dragon, but he called himself d’Aragon.  He came from Naples, was a great gamester, a skilled swordsman, and was always ready to extract himself from a difficulty by a duel.  He had left St. Petersburg because the Orloffs had persuaded the empress to prohibit games of chance.  It was thought strange that the prohibition should come from the Orloffs, as gaming had been their principal means of gaining a livelihood before they entered on the more dangerous and certainly not more honourable profession of conspiracy.  However, this measure was really a sensible one.  Having been gamesters themselves they knew that gamesters are mostly knaves, and always ready to enter into any intrigue or conspiracy provided it assures them some small gain; there could not have been better judges of gaming and its consequences than they were.

But though a gamester may be a rogue he may still have a good heart, and it is only just to say that this was the case with the Orloffs.  Alexis gained the slash which adorns his face in a tavern, and the man who gave the blow had just lost to him a large sum of money, and considered his opponent’s success to be rather the result of dexterity than fortune.  When Alexis became rich and powerful, instead of revenging himself, he hastened to make his enemy’s fortune.  This was nobly done.

Dragon, whose first principle was always to turn up the best card, and whose second principle was never to shirk a duel, had gone to St. Petersburg in 1759 with the Baron de St. Heleine.  Elizabeth was still on the throne, but Peter, Duke of Holstein, the heir-presumptive, had already begun to loom large on the horizon.  Dragon used to frequent the fencing school where the prince was a frequent visitor, and there encountered all comers successfully.  The duke got angry, and one day he took up a foil and defied the Neapolitan marquis to a combat.  Dragon accepted and was thoroughly beaten, while the duke went off in triumph, for he might say from henceforth that he was the best fencer in St. Petersburg.

When the prince had gone, Dragon could not withstand the temptation of saying that he had only let himself be beaten for fear of offending his antagonist; and this boast soon got to the grand-duke’s ears.  The great man was terribly enraged, and swore he would have him banished from St. Petersburg if he did not use all his skill, and at the same time he sent an order to Dragon to be at the fencing school the next day.

The impatient duke was the first to arrive, and d’Aragon was not long in coming.  The prince began reproaching him for what he had said the day before, but the Neapolitan, far from denying the fact, expressed himself that he had felt himself obliged to shew his respect for his prince by letting him rap him about for upwards of two hours.

“Very good,” said the duke, “but now it is your turn; and if you don’t do your best I will drive you from St. Petersburg.”