Our cook, whose name was Rousselot, had brought from France an old note for two hundred livres, which a hair-dresser, a friend of his, had received from a noble Venetian of the name of Zanetto Nani, who had had wigs of him to that amount.Rousselot brought me the note, begging I would endeavor to obtain payment of some part of it, by way of accommodation.I knew, and he knew it also, that the constant custom of noble Venetians was, when once returned to their country, never to pay the debts they had contracted abroad.When means are taken to force them to payment, the wretched creditor finds so many delays, and incurs such enormous expenses, that he becomes disgusted and concludes by giving up his debt or accepting the most trifling composition.I begged M.le Blond to speak to Zanetto.The Venetion acknowledged the note, but did not agree to payment.After a long dispute he at length promised three sequins; but when Le Blond carried him the note even these were not ready, and it was necessary to wait.In this interval happened my quarrel with the ambassador and Iquitted his service.I had left the papers of the embassy in the greatest order, but the note of Rousselot was not to be found.M.le Blond assured me he had given me it back.I knew him to be too honest a man to have the least doubt of the matter; but it was impossible for me to recollect what I had done with it.As Zanetto had acknowledged the debt, I desired M.le Blond to endeavor to obtain from him the three sequins on giving him a receipt for the amount, or to prevail upon him to renew the note by way of duplicate.Zanetto, knowing the note to be lost, would not agree to either.I offered Rousselot the three sequins from my own purse, as a discharge of the debt.He refused them, and said I might settle the matter with the creditor at Paris, of whom he gave me the address.The hair-dresser, having been informed of what had passed, would either have his note or the whole sum for which it was given.What, in my indignation, would Ihave given to have found this vexatious paper! I paid the two hundred livres, and that in my greatest distress.In this manner the loss of the note produced to the creditor the payment of the whole sum, whereas had it, unfortunately for him, been found, he would have had some difficulty in recovering even the ten crowns, which his excellency, Zanetto Nani, had promised to pay.
The talents I thought I felt in myself for my employment made me discharge the functions of it with satisfaction, and except the society of my friend de Carrio, that of the virtuous Altuna, of whom Ishall soon have an occasion to speak, the innocent recreations of the place Saint Mark, of the theater, and of a few visits which we, for the most part, made together, my only pleasure was in the duties of my station.Although these were not considerable, especially with the aid of the Abbe de Binis, yet as the correspondence was very extensive and there was a war, I was a good deal employed.I applied to business the greatest part of every morning, and on the days previous to the departure of the courier, in the evenings, and sometimes till midnight.The rest of my time I gave to the study of the political professions I had entered upon, and in which I hoped, from my successful beginning, to be advantageously employed.In fact Iwas in favor with every one; the ambassador himself spoke highly of my services, and never complained of anything I did for him; his dissatisfaction proceeded from my having insisted on quitting him, in consequence of the useless complaints I had frequently made on several occasions.The ambassadors and ministers of the king with whom we were in correspondence complimented him on the merit of his secretary, in a manner by which he ought to have been flattered, but which in his poor head produced quite a contrary effect.He received one in particular relative to an affair of importance, for which he never pardoned me.
He was so incapable of bearing the least constraint, that on the Saturday, the day of the despatches for most of the courts, he could not contain himself, and wait till the business was done before he went out, and incessantly pressing me to hasten the despatches to the king and ministers, he signed them with precipitation, and immediately went I know not where, leaving most of the other letters without signing; this obliged me, when these contained nothing but news, to convert them into journals; but when affairs which related to the king were in question it was necessary somebody should sign, and Idid it.This once happened relative to some important advice we had just received from M.Vincent, charge des affaires from the king, at Vienna.The Prince Lobkowitz was then marching to Naples, and Count Gages had just made the most memorable retreat, the finest military maneuver of the whole century, of which Europe has not sufficiently spoken.The despatch informed us that a man, whose person M.Vincent described, had set out from Vienna, and was to pass by Venice, on his way into Abruzzo, where he was secretly to stir up the people at the approach of the Austrians.
In the absence of M.le Comte de Montaigu, who did not give himself the least concern about anything, I forwarded this advice to the Marquis de l'Hopital, so apropos, that it is perhaps to the poor Jean-Jacques, so abused and laughed at, that the house of Bourbon owes the preservation of the kingdom of Naples.
The Marquis de l'Hopital, when he thanked his colleague, as it was proper he should do, spoke to him of his secretary, and mentioned the service he had just rendered to the common cause.The Comte de Montaigu, who in that affair had to reproach himself with negligence, thought he perceived in the compliment paid him by M.de l'Hopital, something like a reproach, and spoke of it to me with signs of ill-humor.I found it necessary to act in the same manner with the Count de Castellane, ambassador at Constantinople, as I had done with the Marquis de l'Hopital although in things of less importance.