I
give sufficient scope to malignity in what I say; it is unnecessary I
should furnish still more by my science.

My money was all gone, even that I had secretly received from Madam de
Warrens: I had been so indiscreet as to divulge this secret, and my
conductors had taken care to profit by it. Madam Sabran found means to
deprive me of everything I had, even to a ribbon embroidered with silver,
with which Madam de Warrens had adorned the hilt of my sword; this I
regretted more than all the rest; indeed the sword itself would have gone
the same way, had I been less obstinately bent on retaining it. They
had, it is true, supported me during the journey, but left me nothing at
the end of it, and I arrived at Turin, without money, clothes, or linen,
being precisely in the situation to owe to my merit alone the whole honor
of that fortune I was about to acquire.

I took care in the first place to deliver the letters I was charged with,
and was presently conducted to the hospital of the catechumens, to be
instructed in that religion, for which, in return, I was to receive
subsistence. On entering, I passed an iron-barred gate, which was
immediately double-locked on me; this beginning was by no means
calculated to give me a favorable opinion of my situation. I was then
conducted to a large apartment, whose furniture consisted of a wooden
altar at the farther end, on which was a large crucifix, and round it
several indifferent chairs, of the same materials. In this hall of
audience were assembled four or five ill-looking banditti, my comrades in
instruction, who would rather have been taken for trusty servants of the
devil than candidates for the kingdom of heaven. Two of these fellows
were Sclavonians, but gave out they were African Jews, and (as they
assured me) had run through Spain and Italy, embracing the Christian
faith, and being baptised wherever they thought it worth their labor.

Soon after they opened another iron gate, which divided a large balcony
that overlooked a court yard, and by this avenue entered our sister
catechumens, who, like me, were going to be regenerated, not by baptism
but a solemn abjuration. A viler set of idle, dirty, abandoned harlots,
never disgraced any persuasion; one among them, however, appeared pretty
and interesting; she might be about my own age, perhaps a year or two
older, and had a pair of roguish eyes, which frequently encountered mine;
this was enough to inspire me with t