Peralada came to see me, but separately. Don Diego de la Secada was the
uncle of the Countess A---- B---- whom I had met at Milan. These gentlemen
told me a tale as strange as any of the circumstances which had happened
to me at Barcelona.

On the 26th of December the Abbe Marquisio, the envoy of the Duke of
Modena, asked the viceroy, before a considerable number of people, if he
could pay me a visit, to give me a letter which he could place in no
hands but mine. If not he said he should be obliged to take the letter to
Madrid, for which town he was obliged to set out the next day.

The count made no answer, to everyone's astonishment, and the abbe left
for Madrid the next day, the eve of my being set at liberty.

I wrote to the abbe, who was unknown to me, but I never succeeded in
finding out the truth about this letter.

There could be no doubt that I had been arrested by the despotic viceroy,
who had been persuaded by Nina that I was her favoured lover. The
question of my passports must have been a mere pretext, for eight or ten
days would have sufficed to send them to Madrid and have them back again
if their authenticity had been doubted. Possibly Passano might have told
the viceroy that any passports of mine were bound to be false, as I
should have had to obtain the signature of my own ambassador. This, he
might have said, was out of the question as I was in disgrace with the
Venetian Government. As a matter of fact, he was mistaken if he really
said so, but the mistake would have been an excusable one.

When I made up my mind at the end of August to leave Madrid, I asked the
Count of Aranda for a passport. He replied that I must first obtain one