came to Dresden with you."

"Yes, and I sent her about her business. It was enough for me to keep
them off while she was under my charge. Tell them that if they complain
of me they are wrong, and still more wrong to publish their shame. Let
them learn discretion and get themselves cured in secrecy, if they do not
want sensible men to laugh at them. Don't you think I am right?"

"The adventure is not a very honourable one for you."

"I know it, and that's why I say nothing; I am not such a fool as to
proclaim my shame from the housetops. These friends of yours must be
simpletons indeed; they must have known that I had good reasons for
sending the girl away, and should consequently have been on their guard.
They deserve what they got, and I hope it may be a lesson to them."

"They are all astonished at your being well."

"You may comfort them by saying that I have been as badly treated as
they, but that I have held my tongue, not wishing to pass for a
simpleton."

Poor John saw he had been a simpleton himself and departed in silence. I
put myself under a severe diet, and by the middle of August my health was
re-established.

About this time, Prince Adam Czartoryski's sister came to Dresden,
lodging with Count Bruhl. I had the honour of paying my court to her, and
I heard from her own mouth that her royal cousin had had the weakness to
let himself be imposed on by calumnies about me. I told her that I was of
Ariosto's opinion that all the virtues are nothing worth unless they are
covered with the veil of constancy.

"You saw yourself when I supped with you, how his majesty completely
ignored me. Your highness will be going to Paris next year; you will meet
me there and you can write to the king that if I had been burnt in effigy
I should not venture to shew myself."

The September fair being a great occasion at Leipzig, I went there to
regain my size by eating larks, for which Leipzig is justly famous. I had
played a cautious but a winning game at Dresden, the result of which had
been the gain of some hundreds of ducats, so I was able to start for
Leipzig with a letter of credit for three thousand crowns on the banker
Hohman, an intelligent old man of upwards of eighty. It was of him I
heard that the hair of the Empress of Russia, which looked a dark brown
or even black, had been originally quite fair. The old banker had seen
her at Stettin every day between her seventh and tenth years, and told me
that even then