ented me to his eminence, who was nearly blind. He talked
to me a great deal, without saying anything worth listening to. As soon
as he heard that I was the Casanova who had escaped from The Leads, he
said in a somewhat rude tone that he wondered I had the hardihood to come
to Rome, where on the slightest hint from the State Inquisitors at Venice
an 'ordine sanctissimo' would re-consign me to my prison. I was annoyed
by this unseemly remark, and replied in a dignified voice,--

"It is not my hardihood in coming to Rome that your eminence should
wonder at, but a man of any sense would wonder at the Inquisitors if they
had the hardihood to issue an 'ordine sanctissimo' against me; for they
would be perplexed to allege any crime in me as a pretext for thus
infamously depriving me of my liberty."

This reply silenced his eminence. He was ashamed at having taken me for a
fool, and to see that I thought him one. Shortly after I left and never
set foot in that house again.

The Abbe Winckelmann went out with my brother and myself, and as he came
with me to my hotel he did me the honour of staying to supper.
Winckelmann was the second volume of the celebrated Abbe de Voisenon. He
called for me next day, and we went to Villa Albani to see the Chevalier
Mengs, who was then living there and painting a ceiling.

My landlord Roland (who knew my brother) paid me a visit at supper.
Roland came from Avignon and was fond of good living. I told him I was
sorry to be leaving him to stay with my brother, because I had fallen in
love with his daughter Therese, although I had only spoken to her for a
few minutes, and had only seen her head.

"You saw her in bed, I will bet!"

"Exactly, and I should very much like to see the rest of her. Would you
be so kind as to ask her to step up for a few minutes?"

"With all my heart."

She came upstairs, seeming only too glad to obey her father's summons.
She had a lithe, graceful figure, her eyes were of surpassing brilliancy,
her features exquisite, her mouth charming; but taken altogether I did
not like her so well as before. In return, my poor brother became
enamoured of her to such an extent that he ended by becoming her slave.
He married her next year, and two years afterwards he took her to
Dresden. I saw her five years later with a pretty baby; but after ten
years of married life she died of consumption.

I found Mengs at the Villa Albani; he was an indefatigable worker, and
extremely