actress; though if I had been more discreet I could have got a welcome in
the best society. If I had not promised to dine with Binetti the next day
I should have posted off forthwith, and I should thus have escaped all
the misadventures which befell me in that wretched town.

The Binetti lived in the house of her lover, the Austrian ambassador, and
the part of the house she occupied adjoined the town wall. As will be
seen; this detail is an important one. I dined alone with my good
fellow-countrywoman, and if I had felt myself capable of love at that
period all my old affection would have resumed its sway over me, as her
beauty was undiminished, and she had more tact and knowledge of the world
than when I knew her formerly.

The Austrian ambassador was a good-natured, easygoing, and generous man;
as for her husband he was not worthy of her, and she never saw him. I
spent a pleasant day with her, talking of our old friends, and as I had
nothing to keep me in Wurtemburg I decided to leave in two days, as I had
promised the Toscani and her daughter to go with them on the next day to
Louisbourg. We were to start at five in the morning, but the following
adventure befell me:--

As I was leaving Binetti's house I was greeted very courteously by three
officers whom I had become acquainted with at the coffee house, and I
walked along the promenade with them.

"We are going," said one of them, "to visit certain ladies of easy
virtue; we shall be glad to have you of our company."

"I only speak a few words of German," I answered, "and if I join you I
shall be bored."