king. I spent almost
all my mornings with him, and it was from this prelate that I learnt all
the intrigues and complots by which the ancient Polish constitution, of
which the bishop was a great admirer, had been overturned. Unhappily, his
firmness was of no avail, and a few months after I left Warsaw the
Russian tyrants arrested him and he was exiled to Siberia.

I lived calmly and peaceably, and still look back upon those days with
pleasure. I spent my afternoons with the paladin playing tressette an
Italian game of which he was very fond, and which I played well enough
for the paladin to like to have me as a partner.

In spite of my sobriety and economy I found myself in debt three months
after my arrival, and I did not know where to turn for help. The fifty
ducats per month, which were sent me from Venice, were insufficient, for
the money I had to spend on my carriage, my lodging, my servant, and my
dress brought me down to the lowest ebb, and I did not care to appeal to
anyone. But fortune had a surprise in store for me, and hitherto she had
never left me.

Madame Schmit, whom the king for good reasons of his own had accommodated
with apartments in the palace, asked me one evening to sup with her,
telling me that the king would be of the party. I accepted the
invitation, and I was delighted to find the delightful Bishop Kraswiski,
the Abbe Guigiotti, and two or three other amateurs of Italian
literature. The king, whose knowledge of literature was extensive, began
to tell anecdotes of classical writers, quoting manuscript authorities
which reduced me to silence, and which were possibly invented by him.
Everyone talked except myself, and as I had had no dinner I ate like an
ogre, only replying by monosyllables when politeness obliged me to say
something. The conversation turned on Horace, and everyone gave his
opinion on the great materialist's philosophy, and the Abbe Guigiotti
obliged me to speak by saying that unless I agreed with him I should not
keep silence.

"If you take my silence for consent to your extravagant eulogium of
Horace," I said, "you are mistaken; for in my opinion the 'nec cum venari
volet poemata panges', of which you think so much, is to my mind a satire
devoid of delicacy."

"Satire and delicacy are hard to combine."

"Not for Horace, who succeeded in pleasing the great Augustus, and
rendering him immortal as the protector of learned men. Indeed other
sovereigns seem to vie with him by