to her will be without force at Venice, where I shall go next year, and then I shall declare war against her.’  Madame Ruzzini, who saw that she was being spoken of, asked me what the count had said, and I told her, word for word.  ‘Tell him,’ said she, ’that I accept his declaration of war, and that we shall see who will wage it best.’  I did not think I had committed a crime in reporting her reply, which was after all a mere compliment.  After the opera we set out, and got here at midnight.  I was going to sleep when a messenger brought me a note ordering me to go to the Bussola at one o’clock, Signor Bussinello, Secretary of the Council of Ten, having something to say to me.  Astonished at such an order—­always of bad omen, and vexed at being obliged to obey, I went at the time appointed, and my lord secretary, without giving me a word, ordered me to be taken here.”

Certainly no fault could be less criminal than that which Count Fenarolo had committed, but one can break certain laws in all innocence without being any the less punishable.  I congratulated him on knowing what his crime had been, and told him that he would be set free in a week, and would be requested to spend six months in the Bressian.  “I can’t think,” said he, “that they will leave me here for a week.”  I determined to keep him good company, and to soften the bitterness of his imprisonment, and so well did I sympathize with his position that I forgot all about my own.

The next morning at day-break, Lawrence brought coffee and a basket filled with all the requisites for a good dinner.  The abbe was astonished, for he could not conceive how anyone could eat at such an early hour.  They let us walk for an hour in the garret and then shut us up again, and we saw no more of them throughout the day.  The fleas which tormented us made the abbe ask why I did not have the cell swept out.  I could not let him think that dirt and untidiness was agreeable to me, or that my skin was any harder than his own, so I told him the whole story, and shewed him what I had done.  He was vexed at having as it were forced me to make him my confidant, but he encouraged me to go on, and if possible to finish what I was about that day, as he said he would help me to descend and then would draw up the rope, not wishing to complicate his own difficulties by an escape.  I shewed him the model of a contrivance by means of which I could certainly get possession of the sheets which were to be my rope; it was a short stick attached by one end to a long piece of thread.  By this stick I intended to attach my rope to the bed, and as the thread hung down to the floor of the room below, as soon as I got there I should pull the thread and the rope would fall down.  He tried it, and congratulated me on my invention, as this was a necessary part of my scheme, as otherwise the rope hanging down would have immediately discovered me.  My noble companion was convinced that I ought to stop my work,