The Empress of Russia was wrapped in a large coat of green velvet lined with ermine; on her head she wore a toque of the same colour with an aigrette of diamonds similar to that usually worn by the great Catherine. The other ladies were equally provided against the cold with velvet coats of the richest colours; the Grande-Duchesse de Weimar’s being pink, also trimmed with ermine, a fur which in Austria is exclusively reserved for personages of royal blood. The other colours such as purple and amaranth were all relieved by the rarest and most elegant furs.
Then came the other sledges, to the number of thirty, holding the principal Court personages and the princely guests for whom this entertainment had been projected. The procession crossed the city at only a walking pace, thus enabling the crowd to recognise and to salute those who in a little while will be carried away at a gallop. The Archeduc Palatine has by his side the Grande-Duchesse d’Oldenbourg wrapped in a blue velvet mantle, the shade of which blends most happily with her charming face. Behind these the Prince Royal of Würtemberg has for his companion the Princesse de Lichtenstein. Handsome though his companion is, he does not take his eyes off the sleigh containing the woman he worships, and he looks as if inclined to quarrel with fate for having served him so niggardly. Our charming ‘queen,’ as we call the Comtesse Fuchs, has fallen to the lot of the Prince Guillaume de Prusse. The Prince Léopold de Sicile is with the Princesse Lubomirska, the Prince Eugène with Mme. Apponyi, the Prince Royal de Bavière with the Comtesse Sophie Zichy, the Archeduc Charles with the Comtesse Esterhazy, the Prince Auguste de Prusse with the Comtesse Batthyany, the Comte François Zichy with Lady Castlereagh, the Comte de Wurbna with the Comtesse Walluzen, the Duc de Saxe-Cobourg with the handsome Rosalie Rzewuska. The dresses of all those ladies were elegant beyond description; the men wore Polish coats trimmed with the most beautiful fur.
After that followed a squadron of grooms wearing the imperial livery; then the procession was closed by several reserve sleighs and another huge six-horsed sledge carrying a band dressed in Turkish uniforms and playing warlike tunes. After having slowly traversed the principal streets of Vienna, the procession ranges itself in two lines, and at a signal the horses start at a gallop on the road to Schönbrunn.
In a few moments, the magnificent line of sleighs reaches its first stage. As, however, there had been some slight contretemps with those frail ‘turn-outs,’ there was a half-way halt near the monument erected to King John Sobieski for his deliverance of Austria. It is a triangular pyramid constructed on the very spot where the Grand Vizier Kara-Mustapha had erected his tent during the siege. When the brilliant string of sleighs had vanished from our eyes, there was a unanimous cry of admiration from the numerous spectators at the unique beauty of the sight. The fact of so many illustrious personages being brought to the spot was considered as worthy of admiration as the magnificence and pomp displayed by the Austrian Court and noblesse. Of course it required a solemn function like the Congress to rally so many crowned heads, celebrities of all kinds, and remarkable women. It was, indeed, a picture which for many centuries will not be repeated.
The Empress of Austria, the King and Queen of Bavaria, besides several other personages in far from robust health, who feared the cold, had gone to Schönbrunn in closed carriages. A magnificent fête had been prepared and many invitations issued. The return was to take place at night and by torchlight. After the banquet to which all those who made up the sleighing party were invited, the principal Viennese actors presented one of the prettiest pieces of the French stage, the Cendrillon of M. Étienne, which had been translated into German. A grand ball was to wind up the entertainment. The Prince Koslowski, the Comte de Witt, and I repaired betimes to Schönbrunn.
The sleighs on their arrival formed into a circle around the frozen lake of Schönbrunn, which was like a polished mirror, and was covered by skaters in the most elegant costumes of the various countries of Northern Europe. The scene was very animated, with the various sledges in the shape of swans, gondolas, etc., and reminded one of a Dutch kermesse, especially in respect to the itinerant vendors of fortifying drinks patronised by the energetic performers. The picture was in reality unique in virtue of the various servants in livery, both on foot and on horseback, and the sleighs of the Court itself, not to mention the enormous crowds of spectators who had come all the way from Vienna.
A young man attached to the English embassy, Sir Edward W——, a member of the London skating-club, and accustomed to astonish the promenaders in Hyde Park on the Serpentine, executed some wonderful feats in the way of figures, pirouettes, and single and double curling. Like the Chevalier de St. George, who on the pond at Versailles traced the name of Marie-Antoinette, Sir Edward traced the monograms of the queens, the empresses, and other female celebrities, who left their sleighs to admire his skill. Others, less perfect than he, no doubt, but very skilful nevertheless, performed Chinese and European dances, including a waltz. The latter was danced by two Dutch ladies in the picturesque dresses of Saardam milkmaids, to the applause and admiration of everybody.
I may dispense with a description of the theatre: it was dazzling as usual, but the aspect of the adjacent rooms was truly delightful. The rarest plants of the imperial green-houses—myrtles, orange-trees in full bloom—hid the walls of the staircases, the vestibules, and the ball-rooms; it was a decoration all the more appreciated in virtue of the temperature outside. After the performance of Cendrillon, to which some gracefully designed ballets had been added, the crowd repaired to those drawing-rooms, where the perfume and the variety of the flowers reminded us of the most clement season of the year. They only went through a few polonaises.
‘I am bound to admit,’ said Comte de Witt, ‘that this sleighing party has been a beautiful, marvellous, and elegant affair, even to us Russians, who are accustomed to that kind of magnificence. I also admit that this fête, recalling as it does the spring, is equally worthy of the rest. In truth, at the pace we are proceeding with our amusements, it will not be surprising if surfeit breed disgust. Nevertheless, in order to add something new to all that has been offered to us, and to complete this winter fête, they ought to have constructed on the Schönbrunn lake a palace of ice to receive and entertain our royal company.’