remained at full liberty to
walk at my ease from chamber to chamber and story to story, everywhere
finding the same solitude and nakedness.

This, however, did not induce me to repent that I had preferred the
Lazaretto to the Felucca; and, like another Robinson Crusoe, I began to
arrange myself for my one-and twenty days, just as I should have done for
my whole life. In the first place, I had the amusement of destroying the
vermin I had caught in the Felucca. As soon as I had got clear of these,
by means of changing my clothes and linen, I proceeded to furnish the
chamber I had chosen. I made a good mattress with my waistcoats and
shirts; my napkins I converted, by sewing them together, into sheets; my
robe de chambre into a counterpane; and my cloak into a pillow. I made
myself a seat with one of my trunks laid flat, and a table with the
other. I took out some writing paper and an inkstand, and distributed,
in the manner of a library, a dozen books which I had with me. In a
word, I so well arranged my few movables, that except curtains and
windows, I was almost as commodiously lodged in this Lazeretto,
absolutely empty as it was, as I had been at the Tennis Court in the Rue
Verdelet. My dinners were served with no small degree of pomp; they were
escorted by two grenadiers with bayonets fixed; the staircase was my
dining--room, the landing-place my table, and the steps served me for a
seat; and as soon as my dinner was served up a little bell was rung to
inform me I might sit down to table.

Between my repasts, when I did not either read or write or work at the
furnishing of my apartment, I went to walk in the burying-ground of the
Protestants, which served me as a courtyard. From this place I ascended
to a lanthorn which looked into the harbor, and from which I could see
the ships come in and go out. In this manner I passed fourteen days, and
should have thus passed the whole time of the quarantine without the
least weariness had not M. Joinville, envoy from France, to whom I found
means to send a letter, vinegared, perfumed, and half burnt, procured
eight days of the time to be taken off: these I went and spent at his
house, where I confess I found myself better lodged than in the
Lazaretto. He was extremely civil to me. Dupont, his secretary, was a
good creature: he introduced me, as well at Genoa as in the country, to
several families, the company of which I found very entertaining and
agreeable; and I f