“There is everything, Sire, in that country, and it really deserves to be happy; it is reported that your Majesty had said that if one wished to have a happy dream, one ought——”
“Yes,” interrupted the King, “that is true—one ought to be King of France.”
After spending a delightful fortnight at Potsdam, the Princes took leave of the King of Prussia with regret, and continued their journey, arriving at Saint Petersburg in the month of August.
The Empress received the Prince de Ligne with the greatest distinction; she was already acquainted with him through Voltaire’s letters and the accounts the Emperor Joseph had given her at Mohileff. Catherine found him worthy of all the praise she had heard of him, and writes:—
“We have also the Prince de Ligne, who is one of the most amusing and easy beings to get on with I have ever seen. Though an original and a deep thinker, he yet has all the gaiety of a child. His company would suit me very well.”
On his part the Prince was charmed with Catherine the Great, as he called her, and, thanks to his account, we have a living portrait of the Czarina.
“It was easy to see that she had been handsome rather than pretty; the majesty of her brow was softened by a pleasant look and smile, but it showed all the force of her character, and revealed her genius, justice, judgment, courage, equanimity, gentleness, calmness, and firmness.
“Her chin, though rather pointed, did not exactly project; nor was it a receding chin, but one nobly proportioned. The oval of her face was not good, and yet it was pleasing, for the expression of her mouth was full of frankness and mirth. She must have had a fresh complexion and a fine bust, which, however, she got at the cost of her figure; she had been almost too slight, but one becomes very stout in Russia. She was clean, and if her hair had not been drawn so far back, but allowed to surround her face, she would have been better looking. One did not notice she was small; when she told me, in a slow manner, that she had been very vivacious, it seemed impossible to realise it. On entering a drawing-room she always made the same three bows, like a man, in the Russian style; one to the right, one to the left, and the other in the middle. Everything about her was measured and methodical.”
The Prince had already become very intimate with Catherine at the end of a few days.
“‘What did you suppose I would be like?’ she asked me.