reading Ariosto. He knew Italian, but not enough to speak it, and still
less to appreciate the beauties of the great poet. When I think of this
worthy prince, and of the great qualities he possessed as a man, I cannot
understand how he came to commit so many errors as a king. Perhaps the
least of them all was that he allowed himself to survive his country. As
he could not find a friend to kill him, I think he should have killed
himself. But indeed he had no need to ask a friend to do him this
service; he should have imitated the great Kosciuszko, and entered into
life eternal by the sword of a Russian.

The carnival was a brilliant one. All Europe seemed to have assembled at
Warsaw to see the happy being whom fortune had so unexpectedly raised to
a throne, but after seeing him all were agreed that, in his case at all
events, the deity had been neither blind nor foolish. Perhaps, however,
he liked shewing himself rather too much. I have detected him in some
distress on his being informed that there was such a thing as a stranger
in Warsaw who had not seen him. No one had any need of an introduction,
for his Court was, as all Courts should be, open to everyone, and when he
noticed a strange face he was the first to speak.

Here I must set down an event which took place towards the end of
January. It was, in fact, a dream; and, as I think I have confessed
before, superstition had always some hold on me.

I dreamt I was at a banquet, and one of the guests threw a bottle at my
face, that the blood poured forth, that I ran my sword through my enemy's
body, and jumped into a carriage, and rode away.

Prince Charles of Courland came to Warsaw, and asked me to dine with him
at Prince Poninski's, the same that became so notorious, and was