On another occasion I got the captain of a merchant vessel out of trouble by my own almost unaided efforts. He was a Captain Olivet of Marseilles, but I have forgotten the name of his ship. His crew had started a quarrel with some Slavonians in the State service. There had been some violence, and the vessel had been placed under such a strict embargo that no one except the captain himself could board it or leave it without permission. Captain Olivet approached the ambassador, who sent him packing. Then he went to the consul, who told him that as it was not a commercial affair he could not interfere. I put it to M. de Montaigu that he ought to let me make a statement about this affair before the Senate. I do not remember whether he agreed or whether I presented the statement; but I remember very well that as the steps I took led to nothing and the embargo went on I resorted to a course of action which proved successful. I included an account of the affair in a dispatch to M. de Maurepas, and indeed I had trouble enough in getting M. de Montaigu to agree to let the article stand. I knew that though our dispatches were scarcely worth opening they were opened in Venice. I had proof of it in the articles I found word for word in the Gazette: a breach of faith against which I had tried in vain to bring the ambassador to complain. My object in mentioning this annoying affair in the dispatch was to play upon their curiosity in such a way as to frighten them and make them give the vessel up. For if we had been compelled to wait for the Court’s answer, the captain would have been ruined before it came. But I did more, I visited the ship to question the crew. I took with me Abbé Patizel, chancellor of the consulate, who came very reluctantly, so afraid were all these wretched people of offending the Senate. Being unable to board the vessel on account of the prohibition, I stayed in my gondola, and there drew up my interrogatory, questioning every man in the crew, one after the other, in a very loud voice, and framing my questions in such a way as to elicit answers favourable to their case. I tried to persuade Patizel to ask the questions and draw up the interrogatory himself, which was indeed more in his line than in mine. But he absolutely refused, did not utter a single word, and was scarcely willing to sign the interrogatory after me. However, this rather bold move was successful, and the vessel was released long before a reply came from the ministry. The captain wanted to make me a present. I showed no annoyance, but slapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘Captain Olivet, do you think that a man who does not ask Frenchmen for passport fees, which are his established right, is a man who takes payment for affording the King’s protection?’ He wanted at least to give me a dinner on board, which I accepted, and to which I took Carrio, the secretary of the Spanish embassy, a talented and very charming man, who has since become secretary to the Paris embassy and chargé d’affaires, with whom I had formed an intimacy after the model of our ambassadors.
I should have been happy if whilst doing all the good I could in a spirit of absolute disinterestedness I had been able to introduce sufficient order and accuracy into all these little matters to prevent my being taken in myself and serving others at my own expense. But in such a position as I then filled the slightest of mistakes are not without their consequences. I devoted my whole attention, therefore, to avoiding errors that might have been detrimental to my services. I was till the last most orderly and most punctilious in every detail of my essential duties. Except for a few mistakes in ciphering caused by unavoidable haste, which M. Amelot’s clerks complained of on one occasion, neither the ambassador nor anyone else ever had to reproach me for a single negligence in any of my tasks, which is remarkable in a man as negligent and heedless as I am. But sometimes I was forgetful and careless in the special commissions I undertook; and my sense of justice has always made me take the blame for my own actions before anyone has thought of complaining of me. I will only mention one incident of this sort which is concerned with my departure from Venice, and of which I felt the repercussions later in Paris.
Our cook, whose name was Rousselot, had brought from France an old two-hundred-franc bill which a wig-maker of his acquaintance had received from a Venetian noble called Gianetto Nani as payment for some wigs. Rousselot brought me this bill, and asked me to try and get him something for it by way of compensation. I knew, and he knew too, that it is the custom of Venetian nobles, once they have returned home, to dishonour the debts they have contracted abroad. When some unfortunate creditor tries to force them to pay, they exhaust him with delays and expenses until he loses heart, and in the end gives up entirely or compromises for a negligible sum. I asked M. Le Blond to speak to Gianetto, who acknowledged the bill, but refused to pay. After a struggle he finally promised three sequins. But when Le Blond brought him the bill, the three sequins were not ready, and he had to wait. During this wait occurred my quarrel with the ambassador and my departure from his service. I.left the embassy papers in perfect order, but Rousselot’s bill could not be found. M. Le Blond assured me that he had returned it, and I knew his honesty too well to doubt him. But I found it absolutely impossible to remember what had become of that bill. As Gianetto had acknowledged the debt, I asked M. Le Blond to try and get the three sequins from him on a receipt, or to induce him to replace the bill by a duplicate. But knowing that it was lost, Gianetto refused to do either. I then offered Rousselot the three sequins out of my own purse, in order to discharge the bill. But he refused and told me to arrange the matter with the creditor in Paris, whose address he gave me. Knowing what had happened, the wig-maker demanded his bill or the entire sum. What would I not have given in my indignation, to recover that accursed bill? I paid the two hundred francs, though in a state of great poverty myself. In that way my loss of the bill brought the creditor payment of the debt in full, whereas if – unluckily for him – it had been found he would have had some difficulty in drawing the ten crowns promised by His Excellency Gianetto Nani.
The talent that I felt I possessed for my work made me enjoy it; and except for the society of my friend Carrio and of the virtuous Altuna, of whom I have soon to speak, except for the perfectly innocent delights of the Piazza di San Marco, of the theatre, and of a few visits which we nearly always paid together, I made my duties my sole pleasure. Although my work was not very hard, especially as I had the assistance of the Abbé de Binis, I nevertheless kept reasonably busy, since the correspondence was very extensive, and it was a time of war. I worked every day for a good part of the morning, and on the post-days sometimes till midnight. The rest of my time I devoted to studying the profession I was entering, in which, after my successful start, I reckoned later to gain more lucrative employment. In fact, opinion about me was unanimous from the ambassador downwards, who was extremely pleased with my services and never made a single complaint. His subsequent rage arose from the fact that when I found my complaints unanswered I demanded my discharge. The ambassadors and ministers of the crown with whom we were in correspondence paid him compliments on the excellence of his secretary, which should have flattered him but which in his perverse mind produced quite the opposite effect. One compliment, in particular, received on an important occasion, he never forgave me. The incident is worth describing.
He was so incapable of self-control that even on a Saturday, the day on which almost all the couriers left, he could not wait for the work to be finished before going out, and continually urged me to hurry with the royal and ministerial dispatches, which he hastily signed before running off somewhere or other, leaving the majority of the letters without his signature. This compelled me, when they merely contained news, to turn them into bulletins; but when they dealt with matters relating to the King’s service, it was necessary that someone should sign them, and I did so myself.* This I did in the case of an important dispatch we had just received from the King’s chargé d’affaires in Vienna, M. Vincent. It was at the time when Prince Lobkowitz was marching on Naples, and the Count de Gages made his memorable retreat, the finest military achievement of the whole century, which has received too little attention in Europe. The dispatch stated that a man, whose signature M. Vincent enclosed
, was leaving Vienna and was to pass by way of Venice on a secret journey into the Abruzzi for the purpose of promoting a popular uprising on the Austrians’ approach. In the absence of the Count de Montaigu, who took no interest in anything, I passed this warning on to the Marquis de l’Hôpital, and so timely was it that it is perhaps thanks to the much abused Jean-Jacques that the Bourbons owe the preservation of the Kingdom of Naples.
In thanking his colleague, as was proper, the Marquis de l’Hôpital mentioned his secretary and the service he had rendered to the common cause. Count de Montaigu, who had reason to reproach himself for negligence in the matter, thought he detected some reproof in this compliment, and spoke rather testily to me on the subject. I had had occasion to be of similar service to the Count de Castellane, the ambassador at Constantinople, though in a less important matter. As there was no other post for Constantinople except the couriers sent by the Senate from time to time to their ambassador, notice of their departure was sent to the Count so that he could communicate with his colleague in Constantinople by this channel if he thought fit. It was usual for this notice to be served a day or two in advance. But so little did they think of M. de Montaigu that they were content to send him a message, merely for form’s sake, just an hour or two before the courier left, so that I frequently had to write the dispatch in his absence. M. de Castellane, in his reply, made polite reference to me, as did M. de Jonville at Genoa: two fresh causes for complaint.
I admit that I did not avoid chances of making myself known, but I did not go out of my way to seek them. It seemed quite fair to me that if I gave good services I should look for the normal acknowledgement, which is the esteem of those in a position to judge such services and reward them. I will not say whether my punctilious performance of my duties afforded the ambassador a legitimate cause for complaint; but I certainly know that it is the only complaint he ever made up to the day on which we parted.
He had never introduced any order into his house, and it was full of rabble. The French were badly treated, the Italians took the upper hand; and the best even of them, good men who had given many years of service to the embassy, were rudely dismissed, amongst them the first gentleman, who had held that post under the Count de Froulay. His name, I think, was Count Peati, or something very similar. The second gentleman, a choice of M. de Montaigu’s, was a scoundrel from Mantua by the name of Domenico Vitali, and to him the ambassador entrusted the care of his house. By means of toadying and sordid economies this man obtained his confidence and became his favourite, much to the detriment of the few honest men still left and of the secretary who was the chief of them. No rascal can ever stand up to the straightforward glance of an honest man, and this alone would have been enough to make that man hate me. But his hatred had an additional cause which greatly intensified it. This cause I must state, so that I may be condemned if I was in the wrong.
The ambassador had, according to custom, a box at each of the five theatres, and every day at dinner he announced which of them he intended to visit that evening. I had the next choice, and the gentlemen disposed of the other boxes between them. Then as I went out I took the key of the box for the performance I had chosen. One day, when Vitali was not about, I ordered the servant who waited on me to bring me my key to a house which I named. Instead of giving it to him, however, Vitali said that he had disposed of the box, and I was the more outraged since the servant gave me an account of his reception in public. That evening Vitali tried to offer me some words of apology, which I refused to accept. ‘To-morrow, sir,’ I replied, ‘you will come and apologize to me at such and such an hour in the house where I received the insult, and before the people who witnessed it or, on the day after, come what may, I promise you that either you or I will depart from here.’ This resolute tone impressed him. He came to that house at the appointed hour and offered me a public apology in an abject manner that was in keeping with his character. But he laid his plans at his leisure, and whilst continuing to treat me with exaggerated respect he worked so successfully in his Italian fashion that, although he could not persuade the ambassador to dismiss me, he put me into a position in which I was forced to resign.
A wretch like that was certainly incapable of understanding me, but he did so sufficiently to serve his ends. He knew that I was good-natured and excessively patient in putting up with involuntary injustices, but proud and hasty in face of premeditated slights. He knew too that I liked decency and dignity on occasions that required them, and that I was exacting of the respect due to me as I was careful always to pay others the respect I owed them. He decided to use this as a means of provoking me, and in this he succeeded. He turned the house upside down, and destroyed all the rules and precedence, the order and regularity that I had tried to maintain. A house without a woman needs a somewhat severe discipline, if decency is to be preserved, and without decency there can be no dignity. He soon turned the place into a house of licence and debauchery, a resort of rakes and rogues. In place of the second gentleman whose dismissal he had procured he introduced another pimp like himself, who ran a public brothel at the sign of the Maltese Cross; and these two rascals, in perfect agreement, behaved with an indecency equal to their insolence. With the solitary exception of the ambassador’s room – and even that was not too proper – there was not a single corner of the house fit for any respectable man.
As his Excellency did not take supper, the gentlemen and I had a meal to ourselves in the evenings, which we shared with the Abbé de Binis and the pages. The service would have been cleaner and more decent, the table linen less stained and the food better in the commonest beer-shop. We were given one dirty little tallow candle, pewter plates, and iron forks. I might have stood what went on in private. But they took away my gondola; alone of all the ambassadorial secretaries I was compelled to hire one or go on foot; and now I was attended by his Excellency’s servants only when I went to the Senate. Moreover, everything that went on in this house was known in the town. All the ambassador’s officials protested loudly, and Domenico, the sole cause of it all, loudest of all, for he knew that the disgusting way in which we were treated affected me more than anyone else. I was the only one in the house who said nothing outside, but I complained loudly to the ambassador, not only of our treatment but of his own conduct. Prompted in secret, however, by his evil genius he daily offered me some new affront. Though compelled to spend freely in order to keep up with my colleagues, and to live up to my position, I could not touch a penny of my salary; and when I asked him for money he spoke to me of his esteem and confidence, as if that could have filled my purse and provided for everything.
These two scoundrels finally succeeded in completely turning their master’s head, which was not too strong to start with. They ruined him by continual deals in antiquities in which they always persuaded him he was the sharp fellow, though in fact he was invariably the dupe. They made him rent a palazzo on the Brenta for twice its value, and shared the surplus with the proprietor. Its apartments were encrusted with mosaics, and embellished with very fine marble columns and pilasters after the fashion of the country. But M. de Montaigu had all this magnificently covered by fine panelling, merely for the reason that panelling is the fashion in Paris. It was for a similar reason that, alone of all the ambassadors resident in Venice, he deprived his pages of their swords and his footmen of their sticks. Such was the man who, perhaps from the same motives, took a dislike to me solely because I gave him faithful service.