CHAPTER XIV

An Amusing Meeting in Orsera--Journey to Corfu--My Stay in
Constantinople--Bonneval--My Return to Corfu--Madame F.--The False
Prince--I Run Away from Corfu--My Frolics at Casopo--I Surrender My self
a Prisoner--My Speedy Release and Triumph--My Success with Madame F.

I affirm that a stupid servant is more dangerous than a bad one, and a
much greater plague, for one can be on one's guard against a wicked
person, but never against a fool. You can punish wickedness but not
stupidity, unless you send away the fool, male or female, who is guilty
of it, and if you do so you generally find out that the change has only
thrown you out of the frying-pan into the fire.

This chapter and the two following ones were written; they gave at full
length all the particulars which I must now abridge, for my silly servant
has taken the three chapters for her own purposes. She pleaded as an
excuse that the sheets of paper were old, written upon, covered with
scribbling and erasures, and that she had taken them in preference to
nice, clean paper, thinking that I would care much more for the last than
for the first. I flew into a violent passion, but I was wrong, for the
poor girl had acted with a good intent; her judgment alone had misled
her. It is well known that the first result of anger is to deprive the
angry man of the faculty of reason, for anger and reason do not belong to
the same family. Luckily, passion does not keep me long under its sway:
'Irasci, celerem tamen et placabilem esse'. After I had wasted my time in
hurling at her bitter reproaches, the force of which did not strike her,
and in proving to her that she was a stupid fool, she refuted all my