I visited the old woman whom Giustiniani had told me of several times before I left Zurich, and although I ought to have been well satisfied as far as physical beauty was concerned, my enjoyment was very limited, as the nymphs I wooed only spoke Swiss dialect--a rugged corruption of German. I have always found that love without speech gives little enjoyment, and I cannot imagine a more unsatisfactory mistress than a mute, were she as lovely as Venus herself. I had scarcely left Zurich when I was obliged to stop at Baden to have the carriage M. Ote had got me mended. I might have started again at eleven, but on hearing that a young Polish lady on her way to Our Lady of Einseidel was to dine at the common table, I decided to wait; but I had my trouble for nothing, as she turned out to be quite unworthy of the delay. After dinner, while my horses were being put in, the host’s daughter, a pretty girl enough, came into the room and made me waltz with her; it chanced to be a Sunday. All at once her father came in, and the girl fled. “Sir,” said the rascal, “you are condemned to pay a fine of one louis.” “Why?” “For having danced on a holy day.” “Get out; I won’t pay.” “You will pay, though,” said he, shewing me a great parchment covered with writing I did not understand. “I will appeal.” “To whom, sir?” “To the judge of the place.” He left the room, and in a quarter of an hour I was told that the judge was waiting for me in an adjoining chamber. I thought to myself that the judges were very polite in that part of the world, but when I got into the room I saw the rascally host buried in a wig and gown. “Sir,” said he, “I am the judge.” “Judge and plaintiff too, as far as I can see.” He wrote in his book, confirming the sentence, and mulcting me in six francs for the costs of the case. “But if your daughter had not tempted me.” said I, “I should not have danced; she is therefore as guilty as I.” “Very true, sir; here is a Louis for her.” So saying he took a Louis out of his pocket, put it into a desk beside him, and said; “Now yours.” I began to laugh, paid my fine, and put off my departure till the morrow. As I was going to Lucerne I saw the apostolic nuncio (who invited me to dinner), and at Fribourg Comte d’Afri’s young and charming wife; but at ten leagues from Soleure I was a witness of the following curious circumstances. I was stopping the night in a village, and had made friends with the surgeon, whom I had found at the inn, and while supper, which he was to share with me, was getting ready, we walked about the village together. It was in the dusk of the evening, and at a distance of a hundred paces I saw a man climbing up the wall of a house, and finally vanishing through a window on the first floor. “That’s a robber,” said I, pointing him out to the surgeon. He laughed and said,--