CHAPTER VII.
My Blunders in the French Language, My Success, My Numerous Acquaintances--Louis XV .-- My Brother Arrives in Paris.
All the Italian actors in Paris insisted upon entertaining me, in order to shew me their magnificence, and they all did it in a sumptuous style.
Carlin Bertinazzi who played Harlequin, and was a great favourite of the Parisians, reminded me that he had already seen me thirteen years before in Padua, at the time of his return from St.Petersburg with my mother.
He offered me an excellent dinner at the house of Madame de la Caillerie, where he lodged.

That lady was in love with him.

I complimented her upon four charming children whom I saw in the house.

Her husband, who was present, said to me; "They are M.Carlin's children." "That may be, sir, but you take care of them, and as they go by your name, of course they will acknowledge you as their father." "Yes, I should be so legally; but M.Carlin is too honest a man not to assume the care of his children whenever I may wish to get rid of them.
He is well aware that they belong to him, and my wife would be the first to complain if he ever denied it." The man was not what is called a good, easy fellow, far from it; but he took the matter in a philosophical way, and spoke of it with calm, and even with a sort of dignity.

He was attached to Carlin by a warm friendship, and such things were then very common in Paris amongst people of a certain class.