d intended.

After a few words spoken at random on the memories of bygone years which
time had not entirely defaced, the minister told me to go to the Abbe de
la Ville and use his name.

This abbe, the chief permanent official of the foreign office, was a man
of cold temperament, a profound diplomatist, and the soul of the
department, and high in favour with his excellency the minister. He had
served the state well as an agent at The Hague, and his grateful king
rewarded him by giving him a bishopric on the day of his death. It was a
little late, but kings have not always sufficient leisure to remember
things. His heir was a wealthy man named Gamier, who had formerly been
chief cook at M. d'Argenson's, and had become rich by profiting by the
friendship the Abbe de la Ville had always had for him. These two
friends, who were nearly of the same age, had deposited their wills in
the hands of the same attorney, and each had made the other his residuary
legatee.

After the abbe had delivered a brief discourse on the nature of secret
missions and the discretion necessary to those charged with them, he told
me that he would let me know when anything suitable for me presented
itself.

I made the acquaintance of the Abbe Galiani, the secretary of the
Neapolitan Embassy. He was a brother to the Marquis de Galiani, of whom I
shall speak when we come to my Italian travels. The Abbe Galiani was a
man of wit. He had a knack of making the most serious subjects appear
comic; and being a good talker, speaking French with the ineradicable
Neapolitan accent, he was a favourite in every circle he cared to enter.
The Abbe de la Ville told him that Voltaire had complained that his
Henriade had been translated into Neapolitan verse in such sort that it
excited laughter.

"Voltaire is wrong," said Galiani, "for the Neapolitan dialect is of such
a nature that it is impossible to write verses in it that are not
laughable. And why should he be vexed; he who makes people laugh is sure
of being beloved. The Neapolitan dialect is truly a singular one; we have
it in translations of the Bible and of the Iliad, and both are comic."

"I can imagine that the Bible would be, but I should not have thought
that would have been the case with the Iliad."

"It is, nevertheless."

I did not return to Paris till the day before the departure of Mdlle. de
la Meure, now Madame P----. I felt in duty bound to go and see her, to
give her my congratulations,