His house, which he had never put on a good footing, was constantly filled with rabble; the French were ill-treated in it, and the ascendancy was given to the Italians; of these even, the more honest part, they who had long been in the service of the embassy, were indecently discharged, his first gentleman in particular, whom he had taken from the Comte de Froulay, and who, if I remember right, was called Comte de Peati, or something very like that name.  The second gentleman, chosen by M. de Montaigu, was an outlaw highwayman from Mantua, called Dominic Vitali, to whom the ambassador intrusted the care of his house, and who had by means of flattery and sordid economy, obtained his confidence, and became his favorite to the great prejudice of the few honest people he still had about him, and of the secretary who was at their head.  The countenance of an upright man always gives inquietude to knaves.  Nothing more was necessary to make Vitali conceive a hatred against me:  but for this sentiment there was still another cause which rendered it more cruel.  Of this I must give an account, that I may be condemned if I am found in the wrong.

The ambassador had, according to custom, a box at each of the theaters.  Every day at dinner he named the theater to which it was his intention to go:  I chose after him, and the gentlemen disposed of the other boxes.  When I went out I took the key of the box I had chosen.  One day, Vitali not being in the way, I ordered the footman who attended on me, to bring me the key to a house which I named to him.  Vitali, instead of sending the key, said he had disposed of it.  I was the more enraged at this as the footman delivered his message in public.  In the evening Vitali wished to make me some apology, to which however I would not listen.  “To—­morrow, sir,” said I to him, “you will come at such an hour and apologize to me in the house where I received the affront, and in the presence of the persons who were witnesses to it; or after to—­morrow, whatever may be the consequences, either you or I will leave the house.”  This firmness intimidated him.  He came to the house at the hour appointed, and made me a public apology, with a meanness worthy of himself.  But he afterwards took his measures at leisure, and at the same time that he cringed to me in public, he secretly acted in so vile a manner, that although unable to prevail on the ambassador to give me my dismission, he laid me under the necessity of resolving to leave him.

A wretch like him, certainly, could not know me, but he knew enough of my character to make it serviceable to his purposes.  He knew I was mild to an excess, and patient in bearing involuntary wrongs; but haughty and impatient when insulted with premeditated offences; loving decency and dignity in things in which these were requisite, and not more exact in requiring the respect due to myself, than attentive in rendering that which I owed to others.  In this he undertook