Daniel Defoe

“ The innumerable number of valets, lackeys, and other servants is such that they used to say that there are very few of the common people in Rome but what have been footmen or porters or grooms to cardinals or foreign ambassadors. ”

“ It is true I had letters very frequently from my maid Amy, with accounts that everything was very safe, and that was very much to my satisfaction. However, as the Prince’s negotiations were at an end and he was obliged to return, I was very glad to go; so we returned from Venice to Turin, and on the way I saw the famous city of Milan. From Turin we went over the mountains again, as before, and our coaches met us at Pont-à-Voisin, between Chambéry and Lyons; and so by easy journeys we arrived safely at Paris, having been absent about two years, wanting about eleven days, as above. ”

“ I shall say no more of the journey than that when we came to those frightful mountains the Alps, there was no travelling in our coaches, so he ordered a horse litter, but carried by mules, to be provided for me, and himself went on horseback. The coaches went some other way back to Lyons; then we had coaches hired at Turin which met us at Susa, so that we were accommodated again, and went by easy journeys afterwards to Rome, where his business whatever it was called him to stay some time, and from thence to Venice. ”

“ In a word, they have an air of sharping and cozening, quarrelling and scolding, upon their general behaviour, and when I was there the footmen made such a broil between two great families in Rome, about which of their coaches (the ladies being in the coaches on either side) should give way to the other, that there was above thirty people wounded on both sides, five or six killed outright, and both the ladies frighted almost to death. ”

“ I found the little family we left just as we left them. and Amy cried for joy when she saw me, and I almost did the same.
The Prince took his leave of me the night before, for as he told me, he knew he should be met upon the road by several persons of quality, and perhaps by the Princess herself. So we lay at two different inns that night lest some should come quite to the place, as indeed it happened. ”

“ This gave him no satisfaction at all, nor would he hear any more of it, but if I durst venture myself, as he called it, such a journey, he would not lose the satisfaction of my company; and as for the expense, that was not to be named, neither indeed was there room to name it, for I found that he travelled at the King’s expense, as well for himself as for all his equipage, being upon a piece of secret service of the last importance. ”

“ Upon this rallying him he told me I had either perfectly studied the art of humour, or else what was the greatest difficulty to others was natural to me, adding that nothing could be more obliging to a man of honour than not to be soliciting and craving. ”

“ Here my lord bought me a little female Turkish slave, who, being taken at sea by a Maltese man-of-war, was brought in there, and of her I learnt the Turkish language, their way of dressing and dancing, and some Turkish, or rather Moorish, songs, of which I made use to my advantage on an extraordinary occasion some years after, as you shall hear in its place. ”

“ And for Amy’s safety he ordered a good, honest ancient man and his wife to be in the house with her to keep her company, and a maidservant and a boy, so that there was a good family, and Amy was madam the mistress of the house.
Things being thus secured, we set out incog. as he called it, but we had two coaches and six horses, two chaises, and about eight menservants on horseback all very well armed.
Never was woman better used in this world that went upon no other account than I did. ”