see it came from a well-wisher. The writer said that the slanderers had
got the ears of the king, and that I was no longer a persona grata at
Court, as he had been assured that the Parisians had burnt me in effigy
for my absconding with the lottery money, and that I had been a strolling
player in Italy and little better than a vagabond.

Such calumnies are easy to utter but hard to refute in a foreign country.
At all Courts hatred, born of envy, is ever at work. I might have
despised the slanders and left the country, but I had contracted debts
and had not sufficient money to pay them and my expenses to Portugal,
where I thought I might do something.

I no longer saw any company, with the exception of Campioni, who seemed
more distressed than myself. I wrote to Venice and everywhere else, where
there was a chance of my getting funds; but one day the general, who had
been present at the duel, called on me, and told me (though he seemed
ashamed of his task) that the king requested me to leave the ban in the
course of a week.

Such a piece of insolence made my blood boil, and I informed the general
that he might tell the king that I did not feel inclined to obey such an
unjust order, and that if I left I would let all the world know that I
had been compelled to do so by brute force.

"I cannot take such a message as that," said the general, kindly. "I
shall simply tell the king that I have executed his orders, and no more;
but of course you must follow your own judgment."

In the excess of my indignation I wrote to the king that I could not obey
his orders and keep my honour. I said in my letter,--