frozen the love you had just sent through my being.  Now, however, the case is very different.  I know all I possess in you, and, from all you have told me of your lover, I am well disposed towards him, and I believe him to be my friend.  If a feeling of modesty does not deter you from shewing yourself tender, loving, and full of amorous ardour with me in his presence, how could I be ashamed, when, on the contrary, I ought to feel proud of myself?  I have no reason to blush at having made a conquest of you, or at shewing myself in those moments during which I prove the liberality with which nature has bestowed upon me the shape and the strength which assure such immense enjoyment to me, besides the certainty that I can make the woman I love share it with me.  I am aware that, owing to a feeling which is called natural, but which is perhaps only the result of civilization and the effect of the prejudices inherent in youth, most men object to any witness in those moments, but those who cannot give any good reasons for their repugnance must have in their nature something of the cat.  At the same time, they might have some excellent reasons, without their thinking themselves bound to give them, except to the woman, who is easily deceived.  I excuse with all my heart those who know that they would only excite the pity of the witnesses, but we both have no fear of that sort.  All you have told me of your friend proves that he will enjoy our pleasures.  But do you know what will be the result of it?  The intensity of our ardour will excite his own, and he will throw himself at my feet, begging and entreating me to give up to him the only object likely to calm his amorous excitement.  What could I do in that case?  Give you up?  I could hardly refuse to do so with good grace, but I would go away, for I could not remain a quiet spectator.

“Farewell, my darling love; all will be well, I have no doubt.  Prepare yourself for the athletic contest, and rely upon the fortunate being who adores you.”

I spent the six following days with my three worthy friends, and at the ‘ridotto’, which at that time was opened on St. Stephen’s Day.  As I could not hold the cards there, the patricians alone having the privilege of holding the bank, I played morning and evening, and I constantly lost; for whoever punts must lose.  But the loss of the four or five thousand sequins I possessed, far from cooling my love, seemed only to increase its ardour.

At the end of the year 1774 the Great Council promulgated a law forbidding all games of chance, the first effect of which was to close the ‘ridotto’.  This law was a real phenomenon, and when the votes were taken out of the urn the senators looked at each other with stupefaction.  They had made the law unwittingly, for three-fourths of the voters objected to it, and yet three-fourths of the votes were in favour of it.  People said that it was a miracle of St. Mark’s, who had answered the prayers of Monsignor Flangini, then censor-in-chief, now cardinal, and one of the three State Inquisitors.