"I returned to Vienna, my head still hot with the excitement of that conference. I threw upon paper a host of observations which seemed to me very important relative to the subject in question; I addressed them to the Empress.... The same day at nine o'clock I saw enter my room, eight grenadiers, bayonets and guns, two officers with naked swords, and a secretary of the regency bringing me word which invited me to allow myself to be arrested, reserving all explanations. 'No resistance,' said the officer to me.
"'Monsieur,' I replied coldly, 'I sometimes have resisted robbers, but never Empresses.' I was made to put all my papers under seal. I demanded permission to write to the Empress, and was refused. All my effects were taken from me, knives, scissors, even to my buckles, and a numerous guard was left in my room, where it remained _thirty-one days_ or _forty-five thousand, six hundred_ and _forty minutes_; because, while the hours fly so rapidly for happy people that they scarcely note their succession, those who are unfortunate count time by minutes and seconds, and find it flows slowly when each one is noted separately....
"One may judge of my surprise, of my fury! The next day the person who arrested me came to tranquilize me. 'Monsieur,' I replied, 'there is no repose for me until I have written to the Empress. What happened to me is inconceivable. Give me paper and pens or prepare to chain me, for here is surely enough to drive one mad.'
"At last permission was given me to write; M. de Sartine has all my letters; read them, and the nature of my sorrows will be seen.... I wrote, I supplicated--no reply. 'If I am a scoundrel, send me back to France, let me there be tried and judged....'
"When, on the thirty-first day of my detention, I was set at liberty, they told me that I might return to France or remain in Vienna, as I wished. And if I should die on the way, I would not have remained another quarter of an hour in Vienna. A thousand ducats were presented to me which I firmly refused. 'You have no money, all your belongings are in France.'
"'I will give my note and borrow what is absolutely necessary for my journey.'
"'Monsieur, an Empress does not make loans.'