I hastened immediately to M. le Blond and related to him what had happened.  Knowing the man, he was but little surprised.  He kept me to dinner.  This dinner, although without preparation, was splendid.  All the French of consequence who were at Venice, partook of it.  The ambassador had not a single person.  The consul related my case to the company.  The cry was general, and by no means in favor of his excellency.  He had not settled my account, nor paid me a farthing, and being reduced to the few louis I had in my pocket, I was extremely embarrassed about my return to France.  Every purse was opened to me.  I took twenty sequins from that of M. le Blond, and as many from that of M. St. Cyr, with whom, next to M. le Blond, I was the most intimately connected.  I returned thanks to the rest; and, till my departure, went to lodge at the house of the chancellor of the consulship, to prove to the public, the nation was not an accomplice in the injustice of the ambassador.

His excellency, furious at seeing me taken notice of in my misfortune, at the same time that, notwithstanding his being an ambassador, nobody went near his house, quite lost his senses and behaved like a madman.  He forgot himself so far as to present a memoir to the senate to get me arrested.  On being informed of this by the Abbe de Binis, I resolved to remain a fortnight longer, instead of setting off the next day as I had intended.  My conduct had been known and approved of by everybody; I was universally esteemed.  The senate did not deign to return an answer to the extravagant memoir of the ambassador, but sent me word I might remain in Venice as long as I thought proper, without making myself uneasy about the attempts of a madman.  I continued to see my friends:  I went to take leave of the ambassador from Spain, who received me well, and of the Comte de Finochietti, minister from Naples, whom I did not find at home.  I wrote him a letter and received from his excellency the most polite and obliging answer.  At length I took my departure, leaving behind me, notwithstanding my embarrassment, no other debts than the two sums I had borrowed, and of which I have just spoken; and an account of fifty crowns with a shopkeeper, of the name of Morandi, which Carrio promised to pay, and which I have never reimbursed him, although we have frequently met since that time; but with respect to the two sums of money, I returned them very exactly the moment I had it in my power.

I cannot take leave of Venice without saying something of the celebrated amusements of that city, or at least of the little part of them of which I partook during my residence there.  It has been seen how little in my youth I ran after the pleasures of that age, or those that are so called.  My inclinations did not change at Venice, but my occupations, which moreover would have prevented this, rendered more agreeable to me the simple recreations I permitted myself.  The first and most pleasing of all was the society