Volume VI Part 83 (1/2)

”No doubt Count Marulli told rand duke, and you are quite right You can talk to me in confidence; the walls of this roouineas?”

I told him the whole story, and shewed hirand duke He laughed, and said he was sorry I had been punished for nothing

When he heard I thought of staying soht reckon on perfect freedom, and that as soon as the ivethe cardinal I resolved to continue at Bologna the kind of life that I had been leading at Florence Bologna is the freest town in all Italy; coood, and all the pleasures of life may be had there at a low price The town is a fine one, and the streets are lined with arcades--a great comfort in so hot a place

As to society, I did not trouble nese; the nobles are proud, rude, and violent; the lowest orders, known as the birichini, are worse than the lazzaroni of Naples, while the trades worthy and respectable people At Bologna, as at Naples, the two extremes of society are corrupt, while the middle classes are respectable, and the depository of virtue, talents, and learning

However, my intention was to leave society alone, to pass my time in study, and to make the acquaintance of a few men of letters, who are easily accessible everywhere

At Florence ignorance is the rule and learning the exception, while at Bologna the tincture of letters is almost universal The university has thrice the usual nuet their living out of the students, who are nuna than anywhere else, and though the Inquisition is established there the press is almost entirely free

All the exiles frona four or five days after h on her way to Venice

Zanovitch and Zen stayed five or six days; but they were no longer in partnershi+p, having quarreled over the sharing of the booty

Zanovitch had refused to e payable to Zen, because he did not wish to lishland, and told Zen he was at liberty to do the sa patched up their quarrel, but the Milanese Government ordered theements they finally calish

Medini, penniless as usual, had taken up his abode in the hotel where I was staying, bringing with him his mistress, her sister, and her rand duke had refused to listen to any of them at Pisa, where he had received a second order to leave Tuscany, and so had been obliged to sell everything

Of course he wanted me to help him, but I turned a deaf ear to his entreaties

I have never seen this adventurer without his being in a desperate state of impecuniosity, but he would never learn to abate his luxurious habits, and always ed to find soh to fall in with a Franciscanon his way to Rome to solicit a brief of 'laicisation' from the Pope He fell in love with Medini's mistress, who naturally made him pay dearly for her charms

Medini left at the end of three weeks He went to Ger discovered a Maecenas in the person of the Elector Palatin After that he wandered about Europe for twelve years, and died in a London prison in 1788

I had alarned hiland a wide berth, as I felt certain that if he once went there he would not escape English bolts and bars, and that if he got on the wrong side of the prison doors he would never come out alive He despisedme a liar, he made a mistake, for he proved h birth, a good education, and intelligence; but as he was a poor man with luxurious tastes he either corrected fortune at play or went into debt, and was consequently obliged to be always on the wing to avoid imprisonht possibly be alive now if he had followed o Count Torio told me that he had seen Medini in a London prison, and that the silly fellow confessed he had only co me to be a liar

Medini's fate shall never prevent ood advice to a poor wretch on the brink of the precipice Twenty years ago I told Cagliostro (who called hirini in those days) not to set his foot in Rome, and if he had followed this counsel he would not have died o a wiseSpain I went, but, as the reader knows, I had no reason to congratulate na, happening to be in the shop of Tartuffi, the bookseller, I made the acquaintance of a cross-eyed priest, who struckand talent He presented me with torks which had recently been issued by two of the young professors at the university He told ht

The first treatise contended that woiven them, since they were really the work of the matrix, which influenced them in spite of themselves The second treatise was a criticism of the first The author allowed that the uterus was an anied influence, as no anato any communication between it and the brain

I determined to write a reply to the two pamphlets, and I did so in the course of three days When my reply was finished I sent it to M

Dandolo, instructing hiave a bookseller the agency, and in a fortnight I had made a hundred sequins

The first pamphlet was called ”Lutero Pensante,” the second was in French and bore the title ”La Force Vitale,” while I called my reply ”Lana Caprina” I treated the matter in an easy vein, not without so, and made fun of the lucubrations of the two physicians My preface was in French, but full of Parisian idioible to all who had not visited the gay capital, and this circueneration

The squinting priest, whose name was Zacchierdi, introduced me to the Abbe Severini, who became my intimate friend in the course of ten or twelve days