who, after his return from his embassy in France, had
made him Commissary of the Borders. I was delighted to hear of the
happiness and success of two men who certainly could not help
acknowledging me as the original cause of their good fortune. In Vienna I
acquired the certainty of De la Haye being a Jesuit, but he would not let
anyone allude to the subject.

Not knowing where to go, and longing for some recreation, I went to the
rehearsal of the opera which was to be performed after Easter, and met
Bodin, the first dancer, who had married the handsome Jeoffroi, whom I
had seen in Turin. I likewise met in the same place Campioni, the husband
of the beautiful Ancilla. He told me that he had been compelled to apply
for a divorce because she dishonoured him too publicly. Campioni was at
the same time a great dancer and a great gambler. I took up my lodgings
with him.

In Vienna everything is beautiful; money was then very plentiful, and
luxury very great; but the severity of the empress made the worship of
Venus difficult, particularly for strangers. A legion of vile spies, who
were decorated with the fine title of Commissaries of Chastity, were the
merciless tormentors of all the girls. The empress did not practise the
sublime virtue of tolerance for what is called illegitimate love, and in
her excessive devotion she thought that her persecutions of the most
natural inclinations in man and woman were very agreeable to God. Holding
in her imperial hands the register of cardinal sins, she fancied that she
could be indulgent for six of them, and keep all her severity for the
seventh, lewdness, which in her estimation could not be forgiven.

"One can ignore pride," she would say, "for dignity wears the same garb.
Avarice is fearful, it is true; but one might be mistaken about it,
because it is often very like economy. As for anger, it is a murderous
disease in its excess, but murder is punishable with death. Gluttony is
sometimes nothing but epicurism, and religion does not forbid that sin;
for in good company it is held a valuable quality; besides, it blends
itself with appetite, and so much the worse for those who die of
indigestion. Envy is a low passion which no one ever avows; to punish it
in any other way than by its own corroding venom, I would have to torture
everybody at Court; and weariness is the punishment of sloth. But lust is
a different thing altogether; my chaste soul could not forgive such a
sin, and I dec