yesterday that the man was not sufficiently intelligent to fill the
position he was soliciting. Is he likely to possess a sane judgment when
he refuses to lend you one hundred sequins? That refusal has cost him an
important appointment and an income of three thousand crowns, which would
now be his."

When I was taking my walk on the same day I met Zawoiski with L'Abbadie,
and did not try to avoid them. L'Abbadie was furious, and he had some
reason to be so.

"If you had told me," he said angrily, "that the one hundred sequins were
intended as a gag to stop M. de Bragadin's mouth, I would have contrived
to procure them for you."

"If you had had an inspector's brains you would have easily guessed it."

The Frenchman's resentment proved very useful to me, because he related
the circumstance to everybody. The result was that from that time those
who wanted the patronage of the senator applied to me. Comment is
needless; this sort of thing has long been in existence, and will long
remain so, because very often, to obtain the highest of favours, all that
is necessary is to obtain the good-will of a minister's favourite or even
of his valet. My debts were soon paid.

It was about that time that my brother Jean came to Venice with
Guarienti, a converted Jew, a great judge of paintings, who was
travelling at the expense of His Majesty the King of Poland, and Elector
of Saxony. It was the converted Jew who had purchased for His Majesty the
gallery of the Duke of Modena for one hundred thousand sequins. Guarienti
and my brother left Venice for Rome, where Jean remained in the studio of