condescended, and put my cousin _Charles Adolphus_ in my place. Then did I, under pretence of visiting the beauties of _France_, take large doses of those joys I durst no longer take at _Stockholm_. I was treated every where as a queen, had palaces at my command, and I made at _Fountainbleau_, which was before a bawdy-house, a slaughter-house also before I left it. _Fate justly reached the prattling fool,_ _For telling stories out of school._ _Was’t not enough I stoop’d so low,_ _On him m’affection to bestow?_ _To clasp him in my circling arms,_ _And feast him with love’s choicest charms;_ _But must the babbling fool proclaim,_ _His queen’s infirmity and shame?_ _Of all the sins on this side hell,_ _The blackest sure’s to kiss and tell._ _’Tis silence best becomes delight,_ _And hides the revels of the night._ _If then my spark has met his due,_ _For bringing sacred mysteries to view._ _E’en let him take it for his pains,_ _And curse his want of gratitude and brains._ But I know not whether the monarch of _France_ had long ears like his brother _Midas_, or some little familiar whisper’d it in his ear; but what I thought could never be detected, was publickly discoursed at court. Perceiving this, I resolved on a voyage to _Rome_, and the rather, because I thought the _Romish_ religion most commodious for a woman of inclinations, and that it would illustrate my history, to abjure the opinion of _Luther_ at the feet of the pope; tho’ I had as little believed and followed the doctrine of the _Reformed_, as I have since the absurdities of the _Roman_ church. _Italy_ seem’d to me a paradice, and I thought my past troubles fully recompensed, when I found myself in that famous city, which has been the mistress of this world, without subjects to controul me; saucy chattering _Frenchmen_ to revile me, and amongst a mixture of strangers, which made all my actions pass unregarded. ’Twas enough for me to be esteemed a saint, that I was turn’d Papist in a place where debauchery is tolerated; and you’ll find me, perhaps, one day canonized by the _Roman_ clergy. ’Tis true, I was not so rigorous to them as others for the pope, cardinals, legates, bishops, abbots, priests, and monks, composed my court, where licentiousness reign’d most agreeably. Not that I had renounced the company of young virgins; for I was intimate enough with some of them, to have it said, I was of the humour of _Sappho_; and as I liv’d at _Rome_, so I thought myself obliged to practise their manners. But the chief reason of my writing, is to desire you to protect me against those ignorant coxcombs, who endeavour to put me among the number of the foolish virgins; for I began and finished my course, as I have told you, and will now leave you, to judge if there can be any probability in such a scandalous story. My good friend the pope, to whom I had been wonderfully civil, solemnly swore, that whenever I left this world, I