“The due meed of lying toasts were likewise bawled forth; vows for the ‘Fraternity of Europe,’ and ‘Universal Union,’ &c., with some few favourite names, were also shouted with much riot and applause. Disputes of the most animated kind, concerning the rival merits of divers of our public men, were also started and quelled, but never once was the subject with which every heart must have needs been full made the topic of a single observation. I observed that many, while loudest and most clamorous in their discourse, would cast a shuddering glance towards the chair which had so lately been filled with the violet robes and portly dignity of the Lord Archbishop, and which stood now empty and reproachful by my side; then, by a sudden effort turn away and grow more clamorous and noisy than before; but, as I have already said, not once was the subject of his miserable death alluded to in any one of the numberless speeches which were subsequently uttered. One would have thought that he had been forgotten on the instant, although his cover still remained upon the board, and his jewelled snuff-box still sparkled beside it. While yet the very presence of the man hovered round us, he was, to outward seeming, as much unthought of as though he had never been.”
This story gave rise to others of the same nature, and many were the anecdotes related of sudden death, the summons which startles men in the midst of revelry and festival, at council-board or in the judgment-seat. Some of these are well known, others would have but small interest for the general reader, but one of the most curious was told by the prince himself with the piquant raciness in which he so much excelled, and which has graven the history in my memory. It happened during a time, too, which possessed a peculiar interest to me—a time which, in spite of its importance, has found but few chroniclers—the period of the occupation of Paris by the allied armies, and the visit of the sovereigns of Europe, in 1815. Men’s minds were so agitated by the crowding of events the one upon the other, by dread anticipations of what would come next, that public feeling was taken by surprise, and scarcely had time to set up its own standard, or leisure to record its own impressions; this I take to be the reason why so few of the memoirs of our day contain any special description of the state of society at that time.
“I had been dining with a circle of wary, ever-watchful diplomates of the lesser kind, Russians, Austrians, and Prussians,” began the prince; “every word had been weighed in the balance of prudence and prévoyance before I had ventured to give it utterance. Not a syllable of the conversation of others had been permitted to fall unheeded on my ear, and the extreme tension of intellect which it had required, both in weighing my own words and in watching those of others, had, at last, so wearied my mind, that I experienced a feeling of vacancy, an exhaustion of moral power, which might be compared to nothing but inebriation. When the repast was over, I strolled forth on foot to seek my old friend and comforter, Bergasse. I knew by experience that an hour spent with him would restore my spirit to its equilibrium, and soothe, by the counter-irritation of his fund of whimsical argument, the agitation of my nervous system. He was not at home, however, and I was turning away, disappointed, from his lodgings, when his valet, an old confidential servant, followed me with the information, that, if I needed Monsieur very much, he had left word where he was to be found; he had gone to the soirée at Madame de Krudener’s; it was to be a grand gala night at her house, and the Emperor Alexander was to be among the guests!
“This information of course roused me at once from the fatigue and lethargy of my diplomatic dinner, and I determined to do that night what I had never done before, in spite of the frequent solicitations of the fair philosophe herself, go to ‘the soirée at Madame de Krudener’s;’ nay, there was something in the very project which seemed to revive my flagging spirits, and I set forth on my expedition, determined to be amused; this object being already more than half attained by the very determination alone.
“When I arrived in the Rue de Cléry, where Madame de Krudener then resided, I found the street impassable—a crowd of carriages of every description filling it from one end to the other. I immediately perceived among the number admitted into the courtyard the plain green carriage and unpretending liveries of the Emperor Alexander. It is an extraordinary thing how time and place will suddenly tend to the development of certain sentiments, which, even if they have existed before, have, perhaps, been rather repulsed than encouraged. Thus it was with me on the night in question. No sooner had I beheld the pressure of the crowd, the difficulty of obtaining admittance into the sanctum of Madame de Krudener, than I was seized with an indescribable longing to press forward, and a regret that I had never been to her receptions before. It was some time before I could force my way through the dense mass of visitors which obstructed the staircase. However, in all matters, great or small, everything happens, to those who know how to wait with patience, and my turn did come in due course, and I also found myself ushered into the mighty presence. How different did I find this huitaine from those I had witnessed at her former residence!
“The whole scene of former days flashed upon me, as I made my way through the rooms towards the sanctorum wherein the divinity of the place sat enshrined in mysterious and hallowed seclusion. When I had last beheld her, before her departure for Riga, she was in the bloom of youth and beauty; her complexion, of exquisite fairness, bespoke her northern origin, while the delicate and graceful form bore all the softness of the south. The long ringlets of golden hair which shaded her face in such rich luxuriance had been the theme of many an ode and sonnet, while her grace in the dance had made many an unhappy ‘Gustave’ among the sad incroyables of the day.
“I now found her, after a lapse of years, the same in all things, and yet, how strangely altered! Her youth was gone; and her beauty, of which she still possessed some little share, no longer satisfied that ardent thirst of admiration, that morbid, eager craving for popularity, which had possessed her soul from her childhood upwards. She had been greeted with divine honours, and divinity she would insist upon remaining, in spite of the change which had taken place both in herself and in her worshippers. She had exchanged her pedestal of alabaster, wreathed with roses, for one of mere painted paste-board, and only maintained her àplomb upon its narrow surface by the strangest efforts and contortions. It was a curious scene; such a one as I should have thought it impossible to see enacted in the nineteenth century.
“The rooms were crowded; and, with an admirable comprehension of theatrical display, the fair hostess remained in the furthermost of all from the entrance. A space of the width of the doorways through which you had to pass was kept vacant for the approach of strangers. It was thus that, through a long lane of curious gazers, I was e’en forced to wend my way towards the place where Madame de Krudener sat, in her hallowed and almost solitary glory. In the midst of all that was singular in this extraordinary reception, what struck me most was the unearthly silence which reigned in the assembly. Not a word was uttered above a whisper, and the few greetings of friendly recognition with which I was hailed as I passed through the seven chambers, all crowded to excess, were scarcely audible from the low tone in which they were uttered. The room which Madame had honoured with her preference was a very small boudoir at the extreme end of the apartment. I observed in a moment that those which I had traversed were dimly and poorly lighted, although there was animation enough imparted to the assembly by the gay parure of the ladies, and the glittering uniforms of all nations, which were gathered there; but the effect was so artistically managed, that, as you looked forward down a narrow, shaded vista, the single point brilliantly lighted—the white dress of the lady became the immediate centre of attraction.
“Madame received me most graciously, and I will confess that it was not without some emotion that I bent low to kiss her hand. She courteously reminded me of former times, and, in the sweetest tones which ever fell upon the human ear, reproached me gently for my tardy compliance with her oft-repeated invitation. There certainly was something irresistible in her voice and manner; for I, who had come prepared to resist, yielded to the charm without a struggle, and gazed at her with an interest which I had little expected to feel. She was at that time fast verging towards the dreaded forty, and it was even said that it was merely owing to the disagreement in the two calendars that she had not already passed that fatal boundary, and she defended herself, with most amusing earnestness, against the charge brought forward by the evil-disposed persons who accused her of being both ‘visionary and quadragenary.’ However, time had dealt kindly with her, having left traces of his passage more upon her figure than her face. Both had increased and spread; the bloom and freshness had departed, but wrinkles and suffusion had not yet arrived.
“She was attired in a robe of her own invention, made of some kind of woollen stuff of the purest white, long, full, and flowing, with sleeves which reached to the very ground; the whole was edged with silver, and the robe was confined at the waist by a silver girdle. Her hair, which was still beautiful as ever, although not quite of so bright a golden hue as I remembered it, hung loose down her back and over her bosom, reaching to the waist in the most beautiful ringlets, which, whether the effect of nature or of art, were well calculated to enhance the expression of her inspired attitudes. There was exquisite coquetry in the manner in which, by a gentle movement, she shook the ringlets from her brow, in order to clear her vision, when any new visitor drew near, and in the peculiarly graceful motion with which she would draw her hand now and then across her eyes, as if to shade the light for an instant, during which the snowy fingers, laden with gems, glistened through the drooping curls with an effect perfectly bewildering.