increase the men and the furnaces. I ask your
highness to make me your manager. But remember it must be a State secret,
so burn this letter, and if your highness would give me any reward in
advance, I only ask you to give me your affection and esteem. I shall be
happy if I have reason to believe that my master will also be my friend.
My life, which this letter places in your power, is ever at your service,
and I know not what I shall do if I ever have cause to repent having
disclosed my secret. I have the honour to be, etc."

In whatever language this letter may have been translated, if its sense
run not as above, it is not my letter, and I am ready to give the lie to
all the Mirabeaus in the world. I have been called an exile, but
wrongfully, for a man who has to leave a country by virtue of a 'lettre
de cachet' is no exile. He is forced to obey a despotic monarch who looks
upon his kingdom as his house, and turns out of doors anyone who meets
with his displeasure.

As soon as my purse swelled to a respectable size, I left Augsburg, The
date of my departure was June 14th, 1767. I was at Ulm when a courier of
the Duke of Wurtemburg's passed through the town with the news that his
highness would arrive from Venice in the course of five or six days. This
courier had a letter for me. It had been entrusted to him by Prince
Charles of Courland, who had told the courier that he would find me at
the "Hotel du Raisin," in Augsburg. As it happened, I had left the day
before, but knowing the way by which I had gone he caught me up at Ulm.
He gave me the letter and asked me if I were the same Casanova who had
been placed under arrest and had escaped, on account of some gambling
dispute with three officers. As I was never an adept in concealing the
truth, I replied in the affirmative. A Wurtemburg officer who was
standing beside us observed to me in a friendly manner that he was at
Stuttgart at the time, and that most people concurred in blaming the
three officers for their conduct in the matter.

Without making any reply I read the letter, which referred to our private
affairs, but as I was reading it I resolved to tell a little lie--one of
those lies which do nobody any harm.

"Well, sir," I said to the officer, "his highness, your sovereign, has
listened to reason at last, and this letter informs me of a reparation
which is in every way satisfactory. The duke has created me his private
secretary, with a salary of twelve hundr