had stayed on. I have spared my readers
the painful story because I cannot recall it to my mind even now without
being cut to the heart. The widow whom I loved, and to whom I was so weak
as to disclose my feelings, only attached me to her triumphal car to
humiliate me, for she disdained my love and myself. I persisted in my
courtship, and nothing but my enforced absence would have cured me.

As yet I have not learnt the truth of the maxim that old age, especially
when devoid of fortune, is not likely to prove attractive to youth.

I left Florence poorer by a hundred sequins than when I came there. I had
lived with the most careful economy throughout the whole of my stay.

I stopped at the first stage within the Pope's dominions, and by the last
day but one of the year I was settled at Bologna, at "St. Mark's Hotel."

My first visit was paid to Count Marulli, the Florentine charge
d'affaires. I begged him to write and tell his master, that, out of
gratitude for my banishment, I should never cease to sing his praises.

As the count had received a letter containing an account of the whole
affair, he could not quite believe that I meant what I said.

"You may think what you like," I observed, "but if you knew all you would
see that his highness has done me a very great service though quite
unintentionally."

He promised to let his master know how I spoke of him.

On January 1st, 1772, I presented myself to Cardinal Braneaforte, the
Pope's legate, whom I had known twenty years before at Paris, when he had
been sent by Benedict XVI. with the holy swaddling clothes for the
newly-born Duke of Burgundy. We had met at the Lodge of Freemasons, for
the members of the sacred college were by no means afraid of their own
anathemas. We had also some very pleasant little suppers with pretty
sinners in company with Don Francesco Sensate and Count Ranucci. In
short, the cardinal was a man of wit, and what is called a bon vivant.

"Oh, here you are!" cried he, when he saw me; "I was expecting you."

"How could you, my lord? Why should I have come to Bologna rather than to
any other place?"

"For two reasons. In the first place because Bologna is better than many
other places, and besides I flatter myself you thought of me. But you
needn't say anything here about the life we led together when we were
young men."

"It has always been a pleasant recollection to me."

"No doubt. Count Marulli told me yesterday that you spoke very