I continued to enjoy the society of my two servants and of the fair
Alsation, who cost me a hundred louis. At the end of a week my agreement
with Bassi came to an end, leaving him with some money in his pocket. He
continued to give performances, returning to the usual prices and
suppressing the free gallery. He did very fair business.

I left Augsburg towards the middle of December.

I was vexed on account of Gertrude, who believed herself with child, but
could not make up her mind to accompany me to France. Her father would
have been pleased for me to take her; he had no hopes of getting her a
husband, and would have been glad enough to get rid of her by my making
her my mistress.

We shall hear more of her in the course of five or six years, as also of
my excellent cook, Anna Midel, to whom I gave a present of four hundred
florins. She married shortly afterwards, and when I visited the town
again I found her unhappy.

I could not make up my mind to forgive Le Duc, who rode on the coachman's
box, and when we were in Paris, half-way along the Rue St. Antoine, I
made him take his trunk and get down; and I left him there without a
character, in spite of his entreaties. I never heard of him again, but I
still miss him, for, in spite of his great failings, he was an excellent
servant. Perhaps I should have called to mind the important services he
had rendered me at Stuttgart, Soleure, Naples, Florence, and Turin; but I
could not pass over his impudence in compromising me before the Augsburg
magistrate. If I had not succeeded in bringing a certain theft home to
him, it would have been laid to my door, and I should have been