“Very true, but then I did not know M. de l’Abbadie.  I found out only yesterday that the man was not sufficiently intelligent to fill the position he was soliciting.  Is he likely to possess a sane judgment when he refuses to lend you one hundred sequins?  That refusal has cost him an important appointment and an income of three thousand crowns, which would now be his.”

When I was taking my walk on the same day I met Zawoiski with L’Abbadie, and did not try to avoid them.  L’Abbadie was furious, and he had some reason to be so.

“If you had told me,” he said angrily, “that the one hundred sequins were intended as a gag to stop M. de Bragadin’s mouth, I would have contrived to procure them for you.”

“If you had had an inspector’s brains you would have easily guessed it.”

The Frenchman’s resentment proved very useful to me, because he related the circumstance to everybody.  The result was that from that time those who wanted the patronage of the senator applied to me.  Comment is needless; this sort of thing has long been in existence, and will long remain so, because very often, to obtain the highest of favours, all that is necessary is to obtain the good-will of a minister’s favourite or even of his valet.  My debts were soon paid.

It was about that time that my brother Jean came to Venice with Guarienti, a converted Jew, a great judge of paintings, who was travelling at the expense of His Majesty the King of Poland, and Elector of Saxony.  It was the converted Jew who had purchased for His Majesty the gallery of the Duke of Modena for one hundred thousand sequins.  Guarienti and my brother left Venice for Rome, where Jean remained in the studio of the celebrated painter Raphael Mengs, whom we shall meet again hereafter.

Now, as a faithful historian, I must give my readers the story of a certain adventure in which were involved the honour and happiness of one of the most charming women in Italy, who would have been unhappy if I had not been a thoughtless fellow.

In the early part of October, 1746, the theatres being opened, I was walking about with my mask on when I perceived a woman, whose head was well enveloped in the hood of her mantle, getting out of the Ferrara barge which had just arrived.  Seeing her alone, and observing her uncertain walk, I felt myself drawn towards her as if an unseen hand had guided me.

I come up to her, and offer my services if I can be of any use to her.  She answers timidly that she only wants to make some enquiries.

“We are not here in the right place for conversation,” I say to her; “but if you would be kind enough to come with me to a cafe, you would be able to speak and to explain your wishes.”