re. Opposite the house in which he had taken his
lodging resided a shoemaker, by name Jerome Farusi, with his wife Marzia,
and Zanetta, their only daughter--a perfect beauty sixteen years of age.
The young actor fell in love with this girl, succeeded in gaining her
affection, and in obtaining her consent to a runaway match. It was the
only way to win her, for, being an actor, he never could have had
Marzia's consent, still less Jerome's, as in their eyes a player was a
most awful individual. The young lovers, provided with the necessary
certificates and accompanied by two witnesses, presented themselves
before the Patriarch of Venice, who performed over them the marriage
ceremony. Marzia, Zanetta's mother, indulged in a good deal of
exclamation, and the father died broken-hearted.

I was born nine months afterwards, on the 2nd of April, 1725.

The following April my mother left me under the care of her own mother,
who had forgiven her as soon as she had heard that my father had promised
never to compel her to appear on the stage. This is a promise which all
actors make to the young girls they marry, and which they never fulfil,
simply because their wives never care much about claiming from them the
performance of it. Moreover, it turned out a very fortunate thing for my
mother that she had studied for the stage, for nine years later, having
been left a widow with six children, she could not have brought them up
if it had not been for the resources she found in that profession.

I was only one year old when my father left me to go to London, where he
had an engagement. It was in that great city that my mother made her
first appearance on the stage, and in that city likewise that she gave
birth to my brother Francois, a celebrated painter of battles, now
residing in Vienna, where he has followed his profession since 1783.

Towards the end of the year 1728 my mother returned to Venice with her
husband, and as she had become an actress she continued her artistic
life. In 1730 she was delivered of my brother Jean, who became Director
of the Academy of painting at Dresden, and died there in 1795; and during
the three following years she became the mother of two daughters, one of
whom died at an early age, while the other married in Dresden, where she
still lived in 1798. I had also a posthumous brother, who became a
priest; he died in Rome fifteen years ago.

Let us now come to the dawn of my existence in the character of