Spain | Page 7

I do in a town where I can only drive,
and where the Government keeps assassins in its pay?"

"You are right. We are all sure that Pocchini has calumniated you. The
girl who recites Latin verses is well known, but none know her address.
I must advise you not to publish your tale as long as you are in Vienna,
as it places Schrotembach in a very bad light, and you see the empress
has to support him in the exercise of his authority."
"I see the force of your argument, and I shall have to devour my anger.
I will leave Vienna as soon as the washerwoman sends home my linen,
but I will have the story printed in all its black injustice."
"The empress is prejudiced against you, I don't know by whom."
"I know, though; it is that infernal old hag, Countess Salmor."
The next day I received a letter from Count Vitzthum, in which he said
that Prince Kaunitz advised me to forget the two hundred ducats, that
the girl and her so-called mother had left Vienna to all appearance, as
someone had gone to the address and had failed to find her.
I saw that I could do nothing, and resolved to depart in peace, and
afterwards to publish the whole story and to hang Pocchini with my
own hands when next I met him. I did neither the one nor the other.
About that time a young lady of the Salis de Coire family arrived at
Vienna without any companion. The imperial hangman Schrotembach,
ordered her to leave Vienna in two days. She replied that she would
leave exactly when she felt inclined. The magistrate consigned her to
imprisonment in a convent, and she was there still when I left. The
emperor went to see her, and the empress, his mother, asked him what
he thought of her. His answer was, "I thought her much more amusing
than Schrotembach."
Undoubtedly, every man worthy of the name longs to be free, but who
is really free in this world? No one. The philosopher, perchance, may
be accounted so, but it is at the cost of too precious sacrifices at the
phantom shrine of Liberty.
I left the use of my suite of rooms, for which I had paid a month in

advance, to Campioni, promising to wait for him at Augsburg, where
the Law alone is supreme. I departed alone carrying with me the bitter
regret that I had not been able to kill the monster, whose despotism had
crushed me. I stopped at Linz on purpose to write to Schrotembach
even a more bitter letter than that which I had written to the Duke of
Wurtemburg in 1760. I posted it myself, and had it registered so as to
be sure of its reaching the scoundrel to whom it had been addressed. It
was absolutely necessary for me to write this letter, for rage that has no
vent must kill at last. From Linz I had a three days' journey to Munich,
where I called on Count Gaetan Zavoicki, who died at Dresden seven
years ago. I had known him at Venice when he was in want, and I had
happily been useful to him. On my relating the story of the robbery that
had been committed on me, he no doubt imagined I was in want, and
gave me twenty-five louis. To tell the truth it was much less than what I
had given him at Venice, and if he had looked upon his action as
paying back a debt we should not have been quits; but as I had never
wished him to think that I had lent, not given him money, I received the
present gratefully. He also gave me a letter for Count Maximilian
Lamberg, marshal at the court of the Prince-Bishop of Augsburg,
whose acquaintance I had the honour of having.
There was no theatre then in Augsburg, but there were masked balls in
which all classes mingled freely. There were also small parties where
faro was played for small stakes. I was tired of the pleasure, the
misfortune, and the griefs I had had in three capitals, and I resolved to
spend four months in the free city of Augsburg, where strangers have
the same privileges as the canons. My purse was slender, but with the
economical life I led I had nothing to fear on that score. I was not far
from Venice, where a hundred ducats were always at my service if I
wanted them. I played a little and waged war against the sharpers who
have become more numerous of late than the dupes, as there are also
more doctors than patients. I also thought of getting a mistress, for what
is life without love? I