to disgust me, and in this he succeeded.  He turned the house upside down, and destroyed the order and subordination I had endeavored to establish in it.  A house without a woman stands in need of rather a severe discipline to preserve that modesty which is inseparable from dignity.  He soon converted ours into a place of filthy debauch and scandalous licentiousness, the haunt of knaves and debauchees.  He procured for second gentleman to his excellency, in the place of him whom he got discharged, another pimp like himself, who kept a house of ill—­fame, at the Cross of Malta; and the indecency of these two rascals was equalled by nothing but their insolence.  Except the bed-chamber of the ambassador, which, however, was not in very good order, there was not a corner in the whole house supportable to an modest man.

As his excellency did not sup, the gentleman and myself had a private table, at which the Abbe Binis and the pages also eat.  In the most paltry ale-house people are served with more cleanliness and decency, have cleaner linen, and a table better supplied.  We had but one little and very filthy candle, pewter plates, and iron forks.

I could have overlooked what passed in secret, but I was deprived of my gondola.  I was the only secretary to an ambassador, who was obliged to hire one or go on foot, and the livery of his excellency no longer accompanied me, except when I went to the senate.  Besides, everything which passed in the house was known in the city.  All those who were in the service of the other ambassadors loudly exclaimed; Dominic, the only cause of all, exclaimed louder than anybody, well knowing the indecency with which we were treated was more affecting to me than to any other person.  Though I was the only one in the house who said nothing of the matter abroad, I complained loudly of it to the ambassador, as well as of himself, who, secretly excited by the wretch, entirely devoted to his will, daily made me suffer some new affront.  Obliged to spend a good deal to keep up a footing with those in the same situation with myself, and to make are appearance proper to my employment, I could not touch a farthing of my salary, and when I asked him for money, he spoke of his esteem for me, and his confidence, as if either of these could have filled my purse, and provided for everything.

These two banditti at length quite turned the head of their master, who naturally had not a good one, and ruined him by a continual traffic, and by bargains, of which he was the dupe, whilst they persuaded him they were greatly in his favor.  They persuaded him to take upon the Brenta, a Palazzo, at twice the rent it was worth, and divided the surplus with the proprietor.  The apartments were inlaid with mosaic, and ornamented with columns and pilasters, in the taste of the country.  M. de Montaigu, had all these superbly masked by fir wainscoting, for no other reason than because at Paris apartments were thus fitted up.  It was for a similar reason that he only, of all the ambassadors who were at Venice, took from his pages their swords, and from his footmen their canes.  Such was the man, who, perhaps from the same motive took a dislike to me on account of my serving him faithfully.