As a rule, the Polish women are ugly; a beauty is a miracle, and a pretty woman a rare exception.  At the end of a week of feasting and weariness, I returned to Warsaw.

In this manner I saw Podolia and Volkynia, which were rebaptized a few years later by the names of Galicia and Lodomeria, for they are now part of the Austrian Empire.  It is said, however, that they are more prosperous than they ever were before.

At Warsaw I found Madame Geoffrin the object of universal admiration; and everybody was remarking with what simplicity she was dressed.  As for myself, I was received not coldly, but positively rudely.  People said to my face,—­

“We did not expect to see you here again.  Why did you come back?”

“To pay my debts.”

This behaviour astonished and disgusted me.  The prince-palatin even seemed quite changed towards me.  I was still invited to dinner, but no one spoke to me.  However, Prince Adam’s sister asked me very kindly to come and sup with her, and I accepted the invitation with delight.  I found myself seated opposite the king, who did not speak one word to me the whole time.  He had never behaved to me thus before.

The next day I dined with the Countess Oginski, and in the course of dinner the countess asked where the king had supper the night before; nobody seemed to know, and I did not answer.  Just as we were rising, General Roniker came in, and the question was repeated.

“At Princess Strasnikowa’s,” said the general, “and M. Casanova was there.”

“Then why did you not answer my question?” said the countess to me.

“Because I am very sorry to have been there.  His majesty neither spoke to me nor looked at me.  I see I am in disgrace, but for the life of me I know not why.”

On leaving the house I went to call on Prince Augustus Sulkowski, who welcomed me as of old, but told me that I had made a mistake in returning to Warsaw as public opinion was against me.

“What have I done?”

“Nothing; but the Poles are always inconstant and changeable.  ’Sarmatarum virtus veluti extra ipsos’.  This inconstancy will cost us dear sooner or later.  Your fortune was made, but you missed the turn of the tide, and I advise you to go.”

“I will certainly do so, but it seems to me rather hard.”

When I got home my servant gave me a letter which some unknown person had left at my door.  I opened it and found it to be anonymous, but I could see it came from a well-wisher.  The writer said that the slanderers had got the ears of the king, and that I was no longer a persona grata at Court, as he had been assured that the Parisians had burnt me in effigy for my absconding with the lottery money, and that I had been a strolling player in Italy and little better than a vagabond.

Such calumnies are easy to utter but hard to refute in a foreign country.  At all Courts hatred, born of envy, is ever at work.  I might have despised the slanders and left the country, but I had contracted debts and had not sufficient money to pay them and my expenses to Portugal, where I thought I might do something.