The only person by whom I was ill received, and from whom I should have least expected such an injustice, was Madam de Beuzenval.  Full of the prerogatives of rank and nobility, she could not conceive it was possible an ambassador could ever be in the wrong with respect to his secretary.  The reception she gave me was conformable to this prejudice.  I was so piqued at it that, immediately after leaving her, I wrote her perhaps one of the strongest and most violent letters that ever came from my pen, and since that time I never once returned to her house.  I was better received by Father Castel; but, in the midst of his Jesuitical wheedling I perceived him faithfully to follow one of the great maxims of his society, which is to sacrifice the weak to the powerful.  The strong conviction I felt of the justice of my cause, and my natural greatness of mind did not suffer me patiently to endure this partiality.  I ceased visiting Father Castel, and on that account, going to the college of the Jesuits, where I knew nobody but himself.  Besides the intriguing and tyrannical spirit of his brethren, so different from the cordiality of the good Father Hemet, gave me such a disgust for their conversation that I have never since been acquainted with, nor seen anyone of them except Father Berthier, whom I saw twice or thrice at M. Dupin’s, in conjunction with whom he labored with all his might at the refutation of Montesquieu.

That I may not return to the subject, I will conclude what I have to say of M. de Montaigu.  I had told him in our quarrels that a secretary was not what he wanted, but an attorney’s clerk.  He took the hint, and the person whom he procured to succeed me was a real attorney, who in less than a year robbed him of twenty or thirty thousand livres.  He discharged him, and sent him to prison, dismissed his gentleman with disgrace, and, in wretchedness, got himself everywhere into quarrels, received affronts which a footman would not have put up with, and, after numerous follies, was recalled, and sent from the capital.  It is very probable that among the reprimands he received at court, his affair with me was not forgotten.  At least, a little time after his return he sent his maitre d’ hotel, to settle my account, and give me some money.  I was in want of it at that moment; my debts at Venice, debts of honor, if ever there were any, lay heavy upon my mind.  I made use of the means which offered to discharge them, as well as the note of Zanetto Nani.  I received what was offered me, paid all my debts, and remained as before, without a farthing in my pocket, but relieved from a weight which had become insupportable.  From that time I never heard speak of M. de Montaigu until his death, with which I became acquainted by means of the Gazette.  The peace of God be with that poor man!  He was as fit for the functions of an ambassador as in my infancy I had been for those of Grapignan.—­[I have not been able to find this word in any dictionary, nor does any Frenchman of letters of my acquaintance know what it means.  —­T.]—­However, it was in his power to have honorably supported himself by my services, and rapidly to have advanced me in a career to which the Comte de Gauvon had destined me in my youth, and of the functions of which I had in a more advanced age rendered myself capable.