a disgrace to their own rank, but even to human
nature itself. The society had its secret degrees; and I will believe,
for the credit of the prince, that they never thought him worthy of
admission into the inmost sanctuary. Every one who entered this society
was obliged, at least so long as he continued to be a member of it, to
lay aside all distinctions arising from rank, nation, or religion, in
short, every general mark or distinction whatever, and to submit himself
to the condition of universal equality. To be elected a member was
indeed a difficult matter, as superiority of understanding alone paved
the way to it. The society boasted of the highest ton and the most
cultivated taste, and such indeed was its fame throughout all Venice.
This, as well as the appearance of equality which predominated in it,
attracted the prince irresistibly. Sensible conversations, set off by
the most admirable humor, instructive amusements, and the flower of the
learned and political world, which were all attracted to this point as
to their common centre, concealed from him for a long time the danger
of this connection. As he by degrees discovered through its mask the
spirit of the institution, as they grew tired of being any longer on
their guard before him, to recede was dangerous, and false shame and
anxiety for his safety obliged him to conceal the displeasure he felt.
But he already began, merely from familiarity with men of this class and
their sentiments, though they did not excite him to imitation, to lose
the pure and charming simplicity of his character, and the delicacy of
his moral feelings. His understanding, supported by real knowledge,
could not without foreign assistance solve the fallacious sophisms with
which he had been here ensnared; and this fatal poison had already
destroyed all, or nearly all, the basis on which his morality rested.
He surrendered the natural and indispensable safeguards of his happiness
for sophisms which deserted him at the critical moment, and he was
consequently left to the operation of any specious argument which came
in his way.

"Perhaps the hand of a friend might yet have been in time to extricate
him from this abyss; but, besides that I did not become acquainted with
the real character of the Bucentauro till long after the evil had taken
place, an urgent circumstance called me away from Venice just at the
beginning of this period. Lord Seymour, too, a valuable acquaintance of
the prince,