at the post office at Soleure. I also wrote
to the Duke of Wurtemburg, but had no answer from him, and indeed he must
have found my epistle very unpleasant reading.

I visited the old woman whom Giustiniani had told me of several times
before I left Zurich, and although I ought to have been well satisfied as
far as physical beauty was concerned, my enjoyment was very limited, as
the nymphs I wooed only spoke Swiss dialect--a rugged corruption of
German. I have always found that love without speech gives little
enjoyment, and I cannot imagine a more unsatisfactory mistress than a
mute, were she as lovely as Venus herself.

I had scarcely left Zurich when I was obliged to stop at Baden to have
the carriage M. Ote had got me mended. I might have started again at
eleven, but on hearing that a young Polish lady on her way to Our Lady of
Einseidel was to dine at the common table, I decided to wait; but I had
my trouble for nothing, as she turned out to be quite unworthy of the
delay.

After dinner, while my horses were being put in, the host's daughter, a
pretty girl enough, came into the room and made me waltz with her; it
chanced to be a Sunday. All at once her father came in, and the girl
fled.

"Sir," said the rascal, "you are condemned to pay a fine of one louis."

"Why?"

"For having danced on a holy day."

"Get out; I won't pay."

"You will pay, though," said he, shewing me a great parchment covered
with writing I did not understand.

"I will appeal."

"To whom, sir?"

"To the judge of the place."

He left the room, and in a quarter of an hour I was told that the judge
was waiting for me in an adjoining chamber. I thought to myself that the
judges were very polite in that part of the world, but when I got into
the room I saw the rascally host buried in a wig and gown.

"Sir," said he, "I am the judge."

"Judge and plaintiff too, as far as I can see."

He wrote in his book, confirming the sentence, and mulcting me in six
francs for the costs of the case.

"But if your daughter had not tempted me." said I, "I should not have
danced; she is therefore as guilty as I."

"Very true, sir; here is a Louis for her." So saying he took a Louis out
of his pocket, put it into a desk beside him, and said; "Now yours."

I began to laugh, paid my fine, and put off my departure till the morrow.

As I was going to Lucerne I saw the apostolic nuncio (who invited me to
dinner), and at Fribourg Comte d'Afri's young