el was released
long before an answer came from the minister. The captain wished to make
me a present; but without being angry with him on that account, I tapped
him on the shoulder, saying, "Captain Olivet, can you imagine that he who
does not receive from the French his perquisite for passports, which he
found his established right, is a man likely to sell them the king's
protection?" He, however, insisted on giving me a dinner on board his
vessel, which I accepted, and took with me the secretary to the Spanish
embassy, M. Carrio, a man of wit and amiable manners, to partake of it:
he has since been secretary to the Spanish embassy at Paris and charge
des affaires. I had formed an intimate connection with him after the
example of our ambassadors.

Happy should I have been, if, when in the most disinterested manner I did
all the service I could, I had known how to introduce sufficient order
into all these little details, that I might not have served others at my
own expense. But in employments similar to that I held, in which the
most trifling faults are of consequence, my whole attention was engaged
in avoiding all such mistakes as might be detrimental to my service. I
conducted, till the last moment, everything relative to my immediate
duty, with the greatest order and exactness. Excepting a few errors
which a forced precipitation made me commit in ciphering, and of which
the clerks of M. Amelot once complained, neither the ambassador nor any
other person had ever the least reason to reproach me with negligence in
any one of my functions. This is remarkable in a man so negligent as I
am. But my memory sometimes failed me, and I was not sufficiently
careful in the private affairs with which I was charged; however, a love
of justice always made me take the loss on myself, and this voluntarily,
before anybody thought of complaining. I will mention but one
circumstance of this nature; it relates to my departure from Venice, and
I afterwards felt the effects of it in Paris.

Our cook, whose name was Rousselot, had brought from France an old note
for two hundred livres, which a hairdresser, a friend of his, had
received from a noble Venetian of the name of Zanetto Nani, who had had
wigs of him to that amount. Rousselot brought me the note, begging I
would endeavor to obtain payment of some part of it, by way of
accommodation. I knew, and he knew it also, that the constant custom of
noble Venetians was, when onc