Note 39 — Chapter V
Reading edition
The original scene of a popular anecdote is laid by Miss Knight in Florence. One of the miscellaneous entries in her journal for the year 1783 records how a Moorish ambassador was greatly fêted in that city, but was chiefly pleased with a grand ball at which all the Florentine nobility were present. It must have cost a great deal of money, he said, to pay so many women for dancing.