tiniani told me that the ambassador had thought fit to give
permission to the State Inquisitors to send their men at once to my house
to make search therein. I thought the thing impossible under the shelter
of a foreign ambassador, and instead of taking the usual precautions, I
waited the approach of the men-at-arms, only putting my money in a place
of safety. At daybreak Messer-Grande came to the house, and asked me for
three hundred and fifty sequins, and on my telling him that I hadn't a
farthing he seized me, and here I am."

I shuddered, less at having such an infamous companion than at his
evidently considering me as his equal, for if he had thought of me in any
other light he would certainly not have told me this long tale, doubtless
in the belief that I should take his part. In all the folly about Charron
with which he tormented me in the three days we were together, I found by
bitter experience the truth of the Italian proverb: 'Guardati da colui
che non ha letto che un libro solo'. By reading the work of the misguided
priest he had become an Atheist, and of this he made his boast all the
day long. In the afternoon Lawrence came to tell him to come and speak
with the secretary. He dressed himself hastily, and instead of his own
shoes he took mine without my seeing him. He came back in half an hour in
tears, and took out of his shoes two purses containing three hundred and
fifty sequins, and, the gaoler going before, he went to take them to the
secretary. A few moments afterwards he returned, and taking his cloak
went away. Lawrence told me that he had been set at liberty. I thought,
and with good reason, that, to make him acknowledge his debt and pay it,
the secretary had threatened him with the torture; and if it were only
used in similar cases, I, who detest the principle of torture, would be
the first to proclaim its utility.

On New Year's Day, 1733, I received my presents. Lawrence brought me a
dressing-gown lined with foxskin, a coverlet of wadded silk, and a
bear-skin bag for me to put my legs in, which I welcomed gladly, for the
coldness was unbearable as the heat in August. Lawrence told me that I
might spend to the amount of six sequins a month, that I might have what
books I liked, and take in the newspaper, and that this present came from
M. de Bragadin. I asked him for a pencil, and I wrote upon a scrap of
paper: "I am grateful for the kindness of the Tribunal and the goodness
of M. de Bragadin."