The storm abated while the innocent parchment was still twisting in the fire.
That was enough for the sailors. They believed the spirits of hell had been expelled, and from that moment they thought no more of throwing me into the sea. The chaplain took the calm as his victory; I took it as my deliverance.
After a prosperous voyage of a week, we cast anchor at Corfu.
As soon as I had found a comfortable lodging, I carried my letters to his eminence the proveditore-generale and to the naval commanders to whom I had been recommended. I paid my respects to my colonel, made the acquaintance of the officers of my regiment, and prepared to enjoy myself until the arrival of the Chevalier Venier, who had promised to take me on to Constantinople.
He was expected in June.
I had, therefore, a month before me, and I spent it badly.
Instead of studying Corfu, its people, its customs, its women or even its fortifications, I gave myself to basset. Except on the days when duty claimed me, I lived at the coffee-house, seated before the cards, challenging fortune with the obstinacy of a man who mistakes loss for perseverance.
I lost my money.
Then I sold my jewels.
Then I pledged what remained.
I never won, and I had not the moral strength to stop till all my means were gone. The only comfort I had, and a sorry one truly, was to hear the banker himself call me -perhaps sarcastically- a fine player, every time I lost a large stake.
Such must be the fate awaiting every man who has a taste for gambling, unless he should know how to fix fickle fortune by playing with a real advantage derived from calculation or from adroitness, which defies chance.
I think that a cool and prudent player can manage both without exposing himself to censure, or deserving to be called a cheat.
I learned none of this in time.
At last my misery reached its height.
Then, one morning, the guns began to thunder.
The sound came across the harbour. Men hurried to the windows and doors. The bailo had arrived.
He was on board the Europa, a frigate of seventy-two guns, and had made the passage from Venice to Corfu in only eight days.
The sound of cannon infused me with life. Constantinople was awaiting.
The moment the bailo cast anchor, he hoisted his flag as captain-general of the Venetian navy, and the proveditore hauled down his own. At sea, the Republic had no greater authority than the Bailo to the Porte.
The Chevalier Venier had brought with him a brilliant company: Count Annibal Gambera, Count Charles Zenobio, both Venetian nobles of the first class, and the Marquis d'Anchotti of Brescia, who travelled to Constantinople for pleasure.
The bailo remained a week in Corfu, and all the naval authorities entertained him and his suite in turn, so that there was a constant succession of balls and suppers. I took part in these pleasures as much as my situation allowed, though my recent losses at basset had taught me to admire splendour more than to imitate it.
When I presented myself to his excellency, he received me kindly.
"I have spoken to the proveditore," he said. "He has granted you a furlough of six months. You will accompany me to Constantinople as my adjutant."
This news restored me at once.
The document was delivered. I sent my small stock of worldly goods on board the Europa, and early the next morning we weighed anchor.
We sailed with a favourable wind which remained steady and brought us in six days to Cerigo, where we stopped to take in some water.
Feeling some curiosity to visit the ancient Cythera, I went on shore with the sailors on duty, but it would have been better for me if I had remained on board, for in Cerigo I made a bad acquaintance. I was accompanied by the captain of marines.
The moment we set foot on shore, two men came towards us.
They were poorly dressed, thin, and of unprepossessing appearance. They begged us for assistance.
"Who are you?" I asked.
One answered before the other could open his mouth.
"We are sentenced to live, and perhaps to die, in this island by the despotism of the Council of Ten. There are forty others as unfortunate as ourselves, and we are all born subjects of the Republic."
"What was your crime?"
"The crime of which we have been accused," he said with bitterness, "which is not considered a crime anywhere, is that we were in the habit of living with our mistresses, without being jealous of our friends, when, finding our ladies handsome, they obtained their favours with our ready consent. As we were not rich, we felt no remorse in availing ourselves of the generosity of our friends in such cases, but it was said that we were carrying on an illicit trade, and we have been sent to this place, where we receive every day ten sous in 'moneta lunga'."
The captain of marines looked at me. I understood the case.
The miserable man spread his hands towards the miserable shore.
"We are called 'mangia-mayroni', and are worse off than galley slaves, for we are dying of ennui, and we are often starving without knowing how to stay our hunger."
"My name is Don Antonio Pocchini," he continued. "I am of a noble Paduan family, and my mother belongs to the illustrious family of Campo San-Piero."
We gave them some money, and went about the island, returning to the ship after we had visited the fortress. I shall have to speak of that Pocchini in a few years.
The wind remained favourable, and in eight or ten days we reached the Dardanelles.
There the Turkish barges came out to meet us and carry us on to Constantinople.
The sight offered by that city at the distance of a league is truly wonderful; and I believe that a more magnificent panorama cannot be found in any part of the world.
It was that splendid view which was the cause of the fall of the Roman, and of the rise of the Greek empire.
Constantine the Great, arriving at Byzantium by sea, was so much struck with the wonderful beauty of its position, that he exclaimed, "Here is the proper seat of the empire of the whole world!" and in order to secure the fulfilment of his prediction, he left Rome for Byzantium.
If he had known the prophecy of Horace, or rather if he had believed in it, he would not have been guilty of such folly.
The poet had said that the downfall of the Roman empire would begin only when one of the successors of Augustus bethought him removing the capital of the empire to where it had originated. The road is not far distant from Thrace.
We arrived at the Venetian embassy in Pera about the middle of July, and, for a wonder, there was no talk of the plague in Constantinople just then.
We were given very comfortable lodgings, but the heat soon made the bailo seek cooler air in a country mansion hired by the Bailo Dona at Buyukdere.
The place stood pleasantly by the water, where the breath of the Bosphorus softened the violence of the season.
The first order given to me was never to go out without the bailo's knowledge, and never without the escort of a janissary.
This order I obeyed to the letter.
In those days the Russians had not tamed the insolence of the Turkish people. I am told that foreigners can now go about as much as they please in perfect security.
The day after our arrival, I took a janissary to accompany me to Osman Pacha, of Caramania, the name assumed by Count de Bonneval ever since he had adopted the turban.
I sent in my letter and was admitted at once.
They led me into a ground-floor apartment furnished in the French manner. There I found a stout elderly gentleman dressed like a Frenchman.
He rose as I entered, came towards me smiling and said,
"So how may I serve the protégé of a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, which I can no longer call my mother?"
I told him of the circumstances which, in a moment of despair, had led me to ask Cardinal Acquaviva for letters to Constantinople. I added that, once the letters were in my possession, my superstitious feelings had persuaded me that I was bound to deliver them in person.
He listened with amusement.
"Then, without this letter," he said, "you never would have come to Constantinople, and you have no need of me?"
"True, but I consider myself fortunate in having thus made the acquaintance of a man who has attracted the attention of the whole of Europe, and who still commands that attention."
His excellency smiled and then spoke of the happiness of young men who, without care, without fixed purpose, and without fear, abandon themselves to fortune with that confidence which knows no fear.
He continued, "Well, the cardinal's letter obliges me to do something for you. Since that is the case, I promise to introduce you to three or four of my Turkish friends who deserve to be known."
He invited me to dine with him every Thursday, and undertook to send me a janissary who would protect me from the insults of the rabble and show me everything worth seeing.
The cardinal's letter had presented me as a man of letters, and the pacha, remembering that detail, said I ought to see his library.
I followed him through the garden. He led me into a room lined with cupboards covered in wire grating. Behind the grating hung curtains. Behind the curtains, I naturally supposed, were the books.
He took a key from his pocket and opened one of the cupboards.
Instead of folios, I saw long rows of bottles.
The finest wines stood there in admirable order, more inviting than many libraries I have known. We both laughed heartily.
"Here are," said the pacha, "my library and my harem. I am old, women would only shorten my life but good wine will prolong it, or at least, make it more agreeable.
"I imagine your excellency has obtained a dispensation from the mufti?"
"You are mistaken, for the Pope of the Turks is very far from enjoying as great a power as the Christian Pope. He cannot in any case permit what is forbidden by the Koran; but everyone is at liberty to work out his own damnation if he likes."
"The Turkish devotees pity libertines," he continued, "but they do not persecute them; there is no inquisition in Turkey. Those who do not know the precepts of religion, say the Turks, will suffer enough in the life to come; there is no need to make them suffer in this life. The only dispensation I have asked and obtained, has been respecting circumcision, although it can hardly be called so, because, at my age, it might have proved dangerous. That ceremony is generally performed, but it is not compulsory."
During the two hours I spent with him, he asked me about several friends in Venice, especially Marc Antonio Dieto.
I told him that his friends were still faithful to their affection for him, and did not find fault with his apostasy.
He replied, "I am a Mahometan as I had been once a Christian, and I know the Koran no better than I had known the Gospel."
"I am certain," he added, "that I shall die calmer and happier than Prince Eugene. I was required to say that God is God and that Mahomet is his prophet. I said it. The Turks care very little whether I believe it or not."
He smiled and touched his turban.
"I wear this as a soldier wears a uniform."
"I was nothing but a military man," he continued. "I could not have turned my hand to any other profession, and I made up my mind to become lieutenant-general of the Grand Turk only when I found myself entirely at a loss how to earn my living. When I left Venice, the pitcher had gone too often to the well, it was broken at last, and if the Jews had offered me the command of an army of fifty thousand men, I would have gone and besieged Jerusalem."
Bonneval was still handsome, though too stout. A sabre-cut in the lower part of the abdomen obliged him to wear a constant bandage supported by a silver plate..
He had been exiled to Asia, but only for a short time.
"Cabals do not last here as they do in Europe," he told me. "Above all, not as they do at the court of Vienna."
When I rose to leave, he took my hand kindly.
"Since I came to Turkey," he said, "I have not passed two hours as pleasantly as these. I shall speak well of you to the bailo."
The Bailo Dona, who had known him intimately in Venice, had charged me to carry him all his friendly compliments. M. Venier, for his part, expressed deep regret at not being able to make his acquaintance.