astonished to find myself confronted by Roland in person.

"How's this?" I said. "I thought you were still at the Place d'Espagne."

"I have given my old house to my daughter who has married a prosperous
Frenchman, while I have taken this palace where there are some
magnificent rooms."

"Has your daughter many foreigners staying at her house now?"

"Only one Frenchman, the Comte de l'Etoile, who is waiting for his
equipage to come on. He has an excellent horse, and I am thinking of
buying it from him."

"I advise you to wait till to-morrow, and to say nothing about the advice
I have given you."

"Why should I wait?"

"I can't say any more just now."

This Roland was the father of the Therese whom I had loved nine years
before, and whom my brother Jean had married in 1762, a year after my
departure. Roland told me that my brother was in Rome with Prince
Beloselski, the Russian ambassador to the Court of Saxony.

"I understood that my brother could not come to Rome."

"He came with a safe-conduct which the Dowager Electress of Saxony
obtained for him from the Holy Father. He wants his case to be re-tried,