Book One

I AM GOING TO TELL YOU ABOUT a series of occurrences which many will find incredible, and which I largely witnessed with my own eyes. Those few who are familiar with a certain affair in the political world, if they should still be alive to read these papers, will find that they cast a welcome light on that matter; and even those others who lack this key to the story will perhaps find in it a significant contribution to the history of treachery and of the aberrations of the human spirit. They will be astonished at the daring purposes wickedness is capable of conceiving and pursuing; and they will be amazed at the extraordinary means which it contrives in order to achieve those aims. Truth pure and simple will guide my pen, for if these papers ever reach the public, I shall by then be no more and shall have nothing either to gain or to lose on account of what I have to report.

I was on my way back to Courland in 17**, at about the carnival season, when I called on the Prince of ** in Venice. We had served together in the ** army, and were renewing an acquaintance which had been interrupted by the signing of peace. Since I in any case wanted to see the sights of the city, and as the Prince was only waiting for certain letters of credit before he could return to **, he easily persuaded me to postpone my departure so that I could keep him company until then.