Verita and the Abbe Scampar, a favourite of the Elector's. After dinner
the count gave me a letter of introduction to a canoness at Coblentz, of
whom he spoke in very high terms. That obliged me to stop at Coblentz;
but when I got down at the inn, I found that the canoness was at Manheim,
while in her stead I encountered an actress named Toscani, who was going
to Stuttgart with her young and pretty daughter. She was on her way from
Paris, where her daughter had been learning character-dancing with the
famous Vestris. I had known her at Paris, but had not seen much of her,
though I had given her a little spaniel dog, which was the joy of her
daughter. This daughter was a perfect jewel, who had very little
difficulty in persuading me to come with them to Stuttgart, where I
expected, for other reasons, to have a very pleasant stay. The mother was
impatient to know what the duke would think of her daughter, for she had
destined her from her childhood to serve the pleasures of this voluptuous
prince, who, though he had a titular mistress, was fond of experimenting
with all the ballet-girls who took his fancy.

We made up a little supper-party, and it may be guessed that two of us
belonging to the boards the conversation was not exactly a course in
moral theology. The Toscani told me that her daughter was a neophyte, and
that she had made up her mind not to let the duke touch her till he had
dismissed his reigning mistress, whose place she was designed to take.
The mistress in question was a dancer named Gardella, daughter of a
Venetian boatman, whose name has been mentioned in my first volume--in
fine, she was the wife of Michel d'Agata, whom I found at Munich fleeing
from the terrible Leads, where I myself languished for so long.

As I seemed to doubt the mother's assertion, and threw out some rather
broad hints to the effect that I believed that the first bloom had been
plucked at Paris, and that the Duke of Wurtemburg would only have the