Reception at Madame de Fuchs’s—Prince Philippe d’Hesse-Hombourg—The Journalists and Newsmongers of Vienna—The French Village in Germany—Prince EugÈne—Recollection of the Consulate—Tribulations of M. Denville—Mme. RÉcamier—The Return of the ÉmigrÉ—Childhood’s Friend, or the Magic of a Name—Ball at Lord Stewart’s—Alexander proclaimed King of Poland—The Prince Czartoryski—Confidence of the Poles—Count Arthur Potocki—The Revolutions of Poland—Slavery—Vandar—Ivan, or the Polish Serf.

At one of the soirÉes at the Comtesse de Fuchs’s, the whole of the coterie had gathered round her—for she also had her coterie. In default of diplomatic treaties, her grace and friendship constituted its bond. The conversation had turned on some news which, it was said, had leaked out from the high deliberations of the Congress.

They were asking Prince Philippe d’Hesse-Hombourg if the fate of his family’s Landgravate had been fixed, either by the decisions on the Graben or by those of the more serious Congress.

‘Nothing as yet has transpired,’ he answered, ‘but it is generally expected that the Principality will receive a slight increase.’

Thereupon he gave us some particulars as to the origin of his house, one of the most illustrious in Germany, both in virtue of its age and of its alliances; though he himself had probably no idea of being one day called upon to play the part of its ruler.

‘The Principality of Hesse-Hombourg,’ he said, ‘presents one of the most curious freaks of modern times. It is a small colony of French Huguenots, which settled there at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Landgraf Frederick cordially welcomed those unhappy victims of their king’s intolerance. He gave them land to till, and sold his silver to come to their aid. They founded a village to which they gave the name Friedrichsdorf. The most curious thing is that for more than a hundred years they have preserved, without the slightest alteration, the language, the manners, the costume, in fact everything connected with their country and their century. It is a kind of republic, governed by their minister. Isolated in their valley in the centre of Germany, these men, though practically at the door of their country, appear to have had no part or parcel in the great events that have just been accomplished. They have simply ignored the French Revolution, or if not that, have heard little or nothing of it. Though French at heart by habits, traditions, and origin, they no longer think of the country which in days gone by expelled their fathers.’

‘In my travels,’ I said, ‘I likewise found a similar colony, but one that pushed further on than the other. It carried its household gods as far as Macarief in Russia, It, also, preserved the language and customs of its time, without even omitting the voluminous wig which everybody knows.’

I had drawn close to Prince EugÈne. Most cruelly upset by the events in course of completion, he, as it were, instinctively turned to the past. His memory striding, so to speak, across the decade of Empire, went back with a sort of melancholy regret to the period of the Consulate, which to him was a period of happiness, for it had been that of hope. In truth, those four years constituted a remarkable period; everything seemed eager for a new birth, to emerge altered, if not purified, from the confusion into which the saturnalia of the Directorate had plunged it. At that moment nothing had acquired any stability, but those who had eyes to see perceived well enough that they were advancing with giant steps towards a social regeneration. There was a general, an irresistible, yielding to pleasure. It was not the licence which had preceded it; it was like the distant and expiring sound of that licence assuming a regular cadence day after day. Lavishness was extreme; gold seemed, as it were, to flow; military and administrative fortunes had been made so rapidly as to leave people virtually in doubt as to the real price which had been paid for them. Numberless ÉmigrÉs setting foot once more in their country, and finding their property practically unimpaired, made up by constant enjoyment for the cruel privations they had experienced in an alien land; others, happy to have escaped either that or proscription, followed suit, and freely scattered their fortunes, which they had been within an ace of losing for ever. Finally, as if everything conspired to the glorifying of that period, consider this further: that it counted, perhaps, the largest number of celebrated beauties. Not that chance had absolutely provided a most remarkable type of woman, but gold flung about by handfuls brought to the fore women who, if they had remained in an obscure position, would have probably passed unperceived; placed on pedestals, they borrowed from the world by which they were surrounded part of the brilliancy which dazzled the beholder. We reviewed all the joys of that remarkable period, and we naturally came to the recollection of the woman who was the queen then—Mme. RÉcamier. It was at her house that forgathered the best society of the time, and all that Paris held in the way of illustrious strangers. In her seemed incarnated the elegance and pomp of the moment. Prince EugÈne had often been a guest at those receptions, which Europe has not yet forgotten.

‘That period,’ I said to the prince, ‘will always remain stamped on my memory, not only in virtue of the brilliance of its fÊtes or the glamour of our military glory, but in virtue of a circumstance which formed an epoch in my existence. You know, prince, there are moments when fortune, weary as it were of taking you for its play-ball, suddenly lifts you from the depths of despair to the heaven of glory. At that time I had a very curious experience.’

‘Which is the circumstance?’ promptly exclaimed the Comtesse Laura. ‘You must tell us.’

‘It is a very long episode; nevertheless, if you will grant me your attention for a while, I will obey.

The most unforeseen resolutions are often due to the most trifling causes: it was perhaps one word, a single word, which decided my future. Everybody knows the awkwardness of those pet names that one gives to children, which continue up to a time when what was once pretty and graceful becomes intensely ridiculous. It was formerly the fashion in France, as it was here, and for the matter of that everywhere, to confer upon the very young that second baptism of friendship. Of course it seems the most natural thing in the world to do to-day what we did yesterday. Consequently, in Paris as in Vienna, they called tall, grown-up men, Fanfan, DÉdÉ, Lolo, and other sobriquets, very sweet, but utterly unsuited to the men themselves. I ought to be a good special pleader of that cause, for I also have been called by one of those pet names, and I made a fine thing of it by remembering it on one of the most eventful days of my life. Yes, that rather ridiculous name was for me a talisman worth all the charms of the fairies. Napoleon had overthrown the contemned government of the Directorate. Sufficiently strong to be merciful, he allowed all those who had abandoned their country in order to save their heads to come back again. I had just left my ‘father’ in Amsterdam, he having resolved to send me to Paris in order to see his business man, and to find resources which were absolutely lacking in the alien land. He confided me to one of our countrymen, M. ClÉment, whose acquaintance we had made in Holland, and who was going back to France. We started together for Paris. We took up our quarters at the HÔtel de Paris in the Rue CoquilliÈre. M. ClÉment found letters from his family, who had a few days previously left for Dijon, bidding him to follow them instantly. On leaving me, he entrusted me to the care of the manager, M. Chandeau, a pastry-cook by trade, who was willing to keep me there, though my appearance by no means promised a profitable customer, or even one able to settle a little bill. Nevertheless, I had a modest room on the fifth floor at a rental of twelve francs per month, and as for my meals, I arranged them very much in accordance with the slenderness of my purse. I prefer not to dwell upon this more than precarious existence.

Nevertheless, at the first going off, I thoroughly felt the intoxication of being once more in my native land. I had saluted Paris with the enthusiasm that causes the sailor to shout ‘Land, land!’ after a long absence. I was very young, but I had lived a good deal in a few years. Storms and hurricanes, privation and struggle, even hair-breadth escapes from death—I had known them all. And yet it seemed to me that as recently as the night before I had wandered under the chestnut-trees of the Tuileries, and in the galleries of the Palais-Royal, where I now found myself after a three years’ exile. I was very excited while traversing the Passages, the Places, the bridges, and I ran along them quickly as if in deadly fear of their escaping me once more. I looked at the Seine as if she were an old friend, and still everything was new to me, everything touched a chord of tenderness—even the discordant cries of the itinerant vendors with whom the streets of Paris swarmed. I felt as if I were taking possession of it once more. At sixteen there seems to be such a very long future before one. All that is probable seems possible. One feels unconsciously that by the right of one’s youth the command of the world must devolve upon one. The awakening from this dream was indeed very sombre. I began by calling upon the business people whose addresses my ‘father’ had given me. Some were absent, others pretended to have lost all recollection of us. I took care not to call upon my school-fellows in order to arouse their pity, for I remembered the words Colville had constantly repeated to me at Hamburg: ‘Try to dispense with everything rather than ask a service of the man whom you consider your best friend.’ Consequently, as a rule, I ascended to my perch dead with fatigue, and not at all disposed to say with Pope ‘Whatever is, is right.’ It is true that I got some sympathy from our poor servant, Marie, to dispel the dejection plainly visible on my face. The excellent creature always chose stories calculated to make my blood curdle. ‘A few months ago,’ she said to me, ‘a young and handsome boy, named Denville, lived in this very room. From morn to night he wrote—he was a savant—and then, in order to get a little recreation, he sang, accompanying himself on the guitar. Besides being a savant he was an artist. All this was very well, but though he spent very little, the poor boy never settled his bill, and during the seven months he lodged at the hotel no one had ever seen the colour of his money. He promised well enough, but he wrote in vain to his family, who lived in Rheims. There is none so deaf as those who won’t hear, and not a cent came from Champagne. There are some very hard-hearted parents—very hard-hearted indeed. And that’s why the young fellow so often repeated that no parent comes up to a louis d’or, and that the staunchest friend is the pawnshop.

‘M. Chandeau, furious at getting nothing but promises, lost patience, and only waited a favourable opportunity to cease being made a dupe of, as he said. One evening, when M. Denville had gone downstairs in dressing-gown and slippers to buy some trifling thing at the stationer’s opposite, M. Chandeau promptly mounted the stairs, put a padlock on the door, and practically sequestrated in that way the whole of his lodger’s luggage. When the latter came back, purchase in hand, he found on the landing his pitiless creditor, telling him to seek shelter elsewhere.

‘It’s inhuman, isn’t it, monsieur, to send one’s debtor away like that, practically naked? Prayers, promises, threats were not of the slightest use. The young fellow was obliged to make the best of it, to go down into the street, to promenade up and down like a ghost, with the additional chance of perishing with cold, for it was the middle of November. It struck ten o’clock, and the shops began to close. The poor young man did not know where to look for a shelter, the only hope of such presenting itself to him being the arch of a bridge, or the guard-room of a military post. When he got as far as the Point St. Eustache he was accosted by a poor woman—a working woman—who, touched by the story of his deplorable situation, took him to her room, gave him some supper, and kept him like this for a month, sharing everything with him. But the most surprising part of the story is the end. The lover of this poor girl was the servant of a general. The general was looking out for a secretary. The servant was sufficiently interested in this protÉgÉ of Providence to share his clothes with him, just as the poor girl had shared her crust of bread, after which he presented M. Denville to his master. The general took a fancy to M. Denville’s face, and engaged him, and took him to the army in Italy, in which he was to command a division.

‘You must know, monsieur, that everybody who goes to Italy and doesn’t happen to be killed, comes back rich. That’s what happened to M. Denville. On his return, he was absolutely bursting with gold. He paid everything he owed to M. Chandeau. Better still, he bought, exactly opposite the hotel, a little mercer’s shop to make a present to the young girl who had so charitably picked him up.’ As may easily be imagined, that kind of picture did not give a particularly agreeable tinge to my dreams. This great man, expelled from the room that I was living in, and promenading down below in the street in white, grasping his roll of paper, appeared to me like the statue of the Commander to Don Juan. In my anxiety I now and again substituted the face and figure of my landlord, holding in one hand his little bill, and the padlock in the other. I no longer slept, and I scarcely ate. The mind was killing the body, and I was certainly getting the worst of this terrible struggle, of which I failed to see the end.

I had been to the HÔtel Choiseul, which had been inhabited by my family, and had been transformed into an auction-mart. I wandered through its rooms, every one of which was crowded with furniture and goods offered to the highest bidder. (Subsequently, part of the OpÉra was built on the site.) Alas, throughout my wandering I did not find a stick that belonged to us; even the porter had changed, and, however improbable and romantic it may seem, my only friend of old was Castor, the poor watch-dog, who still occupied his kennel. Pricking up his ears and wagging his tail, Castor licked my hands when I began to stroke him.

Perhaps Castor’s friendliness directed my thoughts to the old friends of my family. Among them I had heard M. RÉcamier cited as the richest banker of his time, and his wife as the foremost woman of fashion. I knew Mme. RÉcamier before her marriage, and when she first came to Paris. When we both were children our parents lived in the same house. Our games and our studies were often interrupted by the scenes of the Revolution. I remembered the incidents of those first years most vividly; but would she remember them? I had lost sight of her completely during those six years so crowded with events. A kind of false shame kept me back. I could not make up my mind to go and see her, amidst all her opulence, in a condition bordering so closely upon a state of poverty as mine. The days went by meanwhile, and I had practically exhausted my last resources. In vain had I tried to borrow money on the portrait of Louis XVI., the last gift of the ill-fated prince to my ‘father,’ his faithful and devoted minister. What interest had those money-changers in a prince who was only great by his virtues, and who already belonged to history?

I informed my ‘father’ of my position; told him of my various unsuccessful attempts, and asked him for fresh instructions. I received in reply a letter dated from Holland. He told me to remain for a little longer in Paris, but if I did not succeed, to come back to Amsterdam, where M. Vandenberg, the landlord of our inn, would procure me the means to join him, my ‘father,’ in England, whither important affairs compelled him to proceed immediately.

I shall never forget the night I spent after that letter. There are situations too painful for description, griefs that may be conceived, but cannot be expressed. I already beheld myself without the slightest resources in Paris; without a mother, without relations or friends, and like those who seek but do not find, who cry and who are made sport of, who would fain attach themselves to some one, and are despised. I was told to start for Amsterdam. How could I? I could imagine what it must have cost my ‘father’ to write that letter. Perhaps he believed that experience had already given me the wisdom which, as a rule, only comes with years, and that the journey of a thousand leagues which I had made with him had taught me to vanquish obstacles. On that occasion, though, I was not alone: his courage sustained mine. In the present instance, his absence left me no other support than the future and God.

My sleep was disturbed and agitated; it was not rest, it was simply the temporary forgetfulness of my trouble. I was looking forward to the cruel struggle with the world; I beheld myself flung amidst the crowd to dispute for a crust of bread with the rest of mankind. The days went by like centuries, for if it be true, as the Prince de Ligne said, that happiness has wings, misfortune has legs of lead. Poor misguided creatures that we are! at fifteen we fancy that we have exhausted fate; at the slightest storm we bend our heads and say, ‘There’s no longer any hope.’ And at sixty we still go on hoping.

One resolution came from all those conflicting ideas. It was high time; for I no longer saw the faintest chance of staving off the crisis, or of temporising with M. Chandeau, whose face became more sour every day. I resolved to go to Mme. RÉcamier, whom I knew to be at her country house at Clichy-la-Garenne. I made up my mind to go and implore her help, as one implores that of an angel from heaven when everything on earth has failed.

One fine May morning, I started from the Rue CoquilliÈre for Clichy. On my way, I tried to screw my courage to the sticking-point by recalling the happy times of my early youth, and in the conjuring up of those pictures, the image of Mme. RÉcamier, who had been the companion of my liveliest joys and of my short-lived griefs, re-appeared continually. Recalling, one by one, the proofs of her genuine affection, always so lavishly bestowed, I dismissed all fear that her immense fortune, her high social position, would cause her to deny the friend of her childhood, coming to her homeless, proscribed, and unhappy.

When I had reached the barrier which majestically dominates Paris, I continued my route between some sparse and poverty-stricken sheds across the fields. I little dreamt that in a comparatively few years there would arise on the spot a pretty town of fifteen thousand inhabitants, with its cafÉs, its baths, and its theatre, that would dispute with Passy the advantages of being the Tibur of the literary men and artists of Paris, frightened at the hubbub of the city. At the other side of the hill which I had slowly mounted, the soft and gently sloping greensward landed me in the Avenue de Clichy. I felt as light of heart under those century-old trees as if I were returning to the paternal manor after a morning’s sport, but at the sight of the gate of the mansion, my assurance forsook me.

Will she receive me? Will she recognise me? My blood, overheated by my rapid march, froze in my veins at the question. I should probably have turned back, but for the knowledge that to advance was the only chance of finding an asylum.

When I got to the porter’s lodge I pulled the chain, producing but a faint tinkling of the bell. It had, nevertheless, been heard, for a voice from inside told Laurette to open the gate. ‘Laurette,’ I said to myself; ‘that name, no doubt, belongs to a young girl, and the sympathy between our ages will probably get me a favourable reception.’ The illusion vanished almost immediately, and I should have been the first to laugh at my blunder if at that moment my poor heart had been at all susceptible to any kind of joy. Instead of the little Laurette I expected—namely, a kind of opÉra-comique shepherdess, with a beflowered and beribboned crook—I beheld an old peasant woman, wrinkled and bent down with years. Laurette was dressed in a black and white striped kirtle, and her crook was represented by the ponderous key of the gate. In answer to my inquiries, she pointed to the door of the hall; but her second reply convinced me that she was deaf, for she kept gently shaking her head and softly slapping her ears with her fore-finger.

Trembling and uncertain, I stood rooted to the spot, dreading to advance; for it is a cruel thing to come to a friend’s door in the guise of a suppliant. But the massive gate had turned on its hinges and closed once more while Laurette re-entered her pavilion, and I was thus compelled to advance. Hence, I took my courage in both hands and slowly crossed the court, still further slackening my pace in ascending the steps of the ancient residence of the Ducs de LÉvis, both fearing and dreading to reach the top. I rang the bell, and in answer a servant appeared. Doffing my tri-cornered hat, considerably too big for me, with that air of humility which renders the man down on his luck so awkward, I asked him, in a voice which I tried in vain to steady, if I might see Mme. RÉcamier. From the way in which he began to ‘take stock’ of me, I imagined that he was in the habit of seeing many needy creatures steer for this haven, and that, naturally, he classed me among the crowd of the wretched which each day solicited the inexhaustible charity of his mistress. ‘I’ll see if madame is at home,’ he said; ‘but what name shall I say?’ I gave him mine, and, apparently satisfied on that point, he bade me take a seat. A few moments passed, and Joseph—that was the name of the domestic—did not return. Devoured with anxiety, I rose from the seat, which offered no rest, and strode up and down the large hall, paved with marble and hung with sombre portraits, paintings of another age, worn out like the past, forgotten like the past, and on the faces of which I tried in vain to catch a favourable smile.

Every one knows with what minute attention a man coming to ask a favour scans the spot where he awaits his fate. At last Joseph came back; but it was no longer the semi-benevolent face that welcomed me on my entrance.

‘Madame is very sorry not to be able to see you to-day, monsieur. Not having the honour of your acquaintance, she would ask you to write to her about the motive of your visit.’

‘Not know me!’ my lips painfully murmured, stupefied. I felt like one suddenly blinded. Everything in this world seemed to fail me at once—the present, the future, friendship, and my courage withal. Tears, but badly hidden by the brim of my hat, coursed down my cheeks. At sixteen one does still shed tears. One has not acquired the courage which is only learned in the school of adversity.

Though distressed beyond measure at my own weakness, I could not make up my mind to leave the place. In fact, by that same wonderful process of the imagination which in a few moments of sleep shows you a long series of diverse objects, my imagination pictured to me spontaneously the steep and winding staircase leading to the attics of the HÔtel de Calais, and my relentless landlord waiting there, my bill in his hand, in order to bar further progress, as he had barred it to my expelled predecessor. There was more than this, however. Some horrid words had in reality fallen upon my ear. Juliet, the friend and companion of my infancy, no longer remembered even my name. During this mental colloquy, Joseph, rigid, motionless, constantly watching a curtain in the hall, showed but too plainly his impatience to close the door upon me for ever. In spite of his looks, I did not budge. I felt it impossible to abandon my last hope. All at once, by one of the spontaneous inspirations often due to desperate positions, it flashed upon me that during my infancy I bore only a pet name, and that Mme. RÉcamier never called me by any other. That was enough. Tightly grasping Joseph’s arm, I exclaimed:

‘Please, monsieur, go back to Mme. RÉcamier, and tell her that it’s Lolo who has come back from Sweden, who begs of her to see him for one moment.’

To judge by Joseph’s face at this new request, I felt certain that he considered me bereft of my senses. The man was, no doubt, asking himself what possible connection there could possibly be between Lolo, Sweden, and his mistress. Consequently, he did not seem disposed to attempt this new message, but I begged so hard that finally he decided in my favour, just as one grants to a patient whose physician has given him up the last whim from which he expects his cure.

Behold me alone once more, striding up and down the huge hall, not even trying to restrain my fears now that there is no stranger to witness them, and recommending myself to that Providence which hovered over our vessel in the storm-tossed Baltic, which had protected me at Copenhagen, and from Whom at that moment I seemed to request a miracle not less decisive than any of the former to which I owed my life.

‘It often takes no more than a minute to settle a man’s destiny,’ says an Arab poet, just as it suffices for one ray of light from heaven to disperse a cloud. At the most exciting part of my mental soliloquy I heard in the distance a concert of feminine voices shouting in all keys. One, however, dominated the rest; and such a voice! That of the heavenly spirits painted by Milton never made a more charming impression. I recognised it at once. Then, immediately afterwards, the door was flung open, and Mme. RÉcamier, surrounded by three young girls as beautiful as herself, rushed towards me, crying, ‘My friend, my poor Lolo, so it’s you!’ and her eyes, fixed on mine, grew moist, while the most grateful and refreshing tears I ever shed in my life coursed freely down my cheeks. ‘Yes, it is I,’ I said.

This, ladies, is one of the chapters in my chequered life. You wished to hear it, and fashion alone must be the excuse for telling it.

This little story wound up the evening.

Next day the majority of us met once more at a fÊte the dazzling pomp of which did not come up to the more intimate happiness of the small circle at the Comtesse de Fuchs’s. Lord Stewart, the English ambassador, gave a grand ball at the magnificent Stahremberg mansion, his residence, to celebrate the birthday of his sovereign. Nothing had been neglected to make the entertainment worthy of the memorable circumstances, and of the power represented by his lordship. Lord Stewart displayed a magnificence—or, to speak correctly, a profusion—of which few fÊtes offered an example. His excellency, however, who loved to be eccentric in everything, and whose eccentricities were not always successful, had hit upon the idea to add to his invitation a courteous injunction to come to his ball in the costume of the time of Elizabeth. His countrymen understood him easily enough, and they were numerous in Vienna. The remainder of the guests had not complied with the request, but those who had adopted the costume were sufficiently numerous to produce a very remarkable effect. As to his excellency himself, he wore his uniform of colonel of hussars, the scarlet of which was covered with embroideries, and a great number of orders, civil and military, to such a degree as to have led one easily to mistake him for a living book of heraldry. Save for that singularity the ball was like any other: a great many sovereigns, princes, ‘grandes dames,’ political celebrities; a marvellous supper; a charming lottery of English trifles, which a lady dressed exactly like Queen Elizabeth distributed to the guests. After which we danced until daylight, a proceeding becoming rarer and rarer every day in Vienna, where the Court balls were seldom prolonged beyond midnight.

While all this was going on, the uncertainties of the Polish question had ceased. The result of the conferences of the Congress, which both Europe and Vienna awaited with equal impatience, was at last known. Alexander had been proclaimed King of Poland. During four months this had been the exclusive aim of his thoughts. His efforts, the ability of his ministers, the profound correctness of their views, had been crowned with success. The Duchy of Warsaw and the handsomest part of the Polish territory were definitely incorporated with his empire. The gate of the West was open to him. Among the various phases of that negotiation, two things could not fail to strike the mind—the clever diplomacy of the Russian Government, and the confidence of the Poles. When the fall of Napoleon dispelled the last hopes of the Poles, they instinctively turned their regard towards Alexander. Persuaded that he would restore to them their ancient position, that he would reconstitute in Poland an independent kingdom, they transferred to him their affection and their hopes. Neither the recollections of the past nor the lessons of history, nor the warnings of some sagacious minds had succeeded in opening their eyes. Alexander and his ministry, it should be said, had carefully exploited that disposition. A great parade was made of moderation. The most seductive promises were lavished on the Polish nation. Their dreams of independence, their ideas of a free constitution, were constantly flattered. The Russian officers in Poland received orders to show the utmost deference to the civil and military authorities. Finally, in the month of September 1814, even before Alexander crossed Poland to appear at the Congress, when General Krazinski entered Warsaw with his division, the Field-Marshal Barclay de Tolly at the head of his staff had been the first to congratulate him. The most cordial union apparently existed between the generals of the two nations.

But from the first conferences of the plenipotentiaries, and in spite of the protestations of the czar in favour of the Polish nation, Alexander’s system of aggrandisement was soon discovered.

In vain did the King of Prussia, in close agreement with him, support all his demands. The Congress resisted a long while before giving its assent. France, Austria, and England opposed an absolute refusal. We have already seen how Alexander declared one day that he would maintain, arms in hand, his pretensions regarding the freedom of Poland. Finally, thoroughly tired out, the Congress gave way, and the country of the Jagellons and the Sobieskis was united to Russia. The decision had scarcely been made public when Alexander announced it to the government of Warsaw. In an autograph letter to Comte Ostrowski, President of the Senate, the czar expressed himself as follows:

‘In assuming the title of King of Poland, I desire to satisfy the wish of the nation. The Kingdom of Poland will be united to the empire by the bonds of its own constitution. If the supreme interest of a general peace has made it impossible for all the Poles to be united under one sceptre, I have made it a point to soften the rigours of that separation, and to secure for them everywhere a peaceful enjoyment of their nationality.’

Faithful to his system, Alexander shouted very loudly from the house-tops the word ‘nationality’ at the very moment when was accomplished and consecrated the division which was to make havoc of the word itself. Among the Polish notabilities in Vienna who had defended the cause with most intelligence and courage, one must mention in the first rank the Prince Adam Czartoryski. The passionate defender of the independence of his country, he for one moment fostered the illusion of having found the regenerator in Alexander. When the emperor, during his voyage from Russia to Vienna, stopped at Pulawi, the residence of this ancient family, the princess-dowager, her two sons, Adam and Constantine; her two daughters, the Princesse de WÜrtemberg and the Comtesse Zamoyska, had prepared the most brilliant reception. In their eyes it was Alexander whose hand was to raise their country from its ruin. Alexander, on his side, professed a great esteem for the character of Prince Adam. Even at the Congress the rumour ran for a moment that he was going to appoint him his Minister of Foreign Affairs, instead of M. de Nesselrode, and that he reserved the vice-royalty of Poland for him later on. It was never known how far those rumours could be substantiated. Was it a tribute to the loyalty and talent of Prince Adam? Was it a means of leading people astray? Afterwards Europe learned how that prince became the martyr of the cause to which he had devoted the whole of his life. What, in the future, was to be the upshot of that decision of the Congress? Placed under the sceptre of the Russian autocrat, would Poland once more find her level among the rank of nations, or, like the streams which lose both their name and their substance, was Poland to be swallowed up in the immense boundaries? Such were the questions discussed one day in the most lively manner at Princesse Sapieha’s. Around her were the Comte Arthur Potocki, the Comte Komar, the Prince Radziwill, the Prince Paul Sapieha, the Princesse Lubomirska, the Comtesse Lanskarouska, and several other ladies. Illusion is nowhere so thoroughly permitted as when it becomes a question of country; in that gathering, all hearts were generally open to the hopes of a political restoration, all minds believed in the realisation of Alexander’s promises.