‘Yes, sire.’
‘And where is he now?’
‘On his estates at Lucca.’
‘If he writes his recollections,’ remarked Alexander, ‘they will be very interesting, for he has seen and observed much.’
We afterwards paid a visit to the sumptuously decorated apartments. In one of these a pan-harmonium, composed of a hundred and fifty wind-instruments, played symphonies and marches, accompanied with admirable precision by an automatic trumpet. We left the archduke with his illustrious visitors and went to the Belvedere in order to see a collection of pictures which had been largely increased by Joseph II. at the suppression of some convents. The palace of Belvedere requires no description. Its curator, M. Fugger, was kind enough to serve as guide, and specially pointed out to us the Titians, Rubenses, and Vandykes. In the evening we went as usual to the Comtesse Fuchs’s. There I met Prince Eugène, and the conversation turned on the treasures collected at Malmaison, which were thoroughly appreciated by Prince Gargarine and Colonel Brozin, who had become acquainted with them during Alexander’s several visits to Josephine.
CHAPTER XXI
Ypsilanti—Promenade on the Prater—First Rumour of the Escape of Napoleon—Projects for the Deliverance of Greece—Comte Capo d’Istria—The Hétairites—Meeting with Ypsilanti in 1820—His Projects and Reverses.
I had missed Ypsilanti from his usual haunts for a considerable time, and on the rare occasions that I caught a glimpse of him, melancholy seemed to have taken him for its prey. I attributed this to a more than usually serious love affair, but I had no idea that his projects for the deliverance of Greece were the cause of his constant absence. At the moment when the Congress laboured at the consolidation of a general peace, the realisation of his generous plan seemed to recede further into the distance. It was improbable that Europe, even in the interests of Miltiades and Themistocles, would allow the equilibrium to be disturbed and risk once more the world’s repose. One morning I was riding through the Prater, after a stormy night which had burst over Vienna and occasioned much damage. The sky was bright, and the sun glinted through the trees. I saw Ypsilanti close to a path where I had seen him just five months previously, dawdling along, the reins on his horse’s neck, and, as usual, his face overcast with care. Thinking the moment opportune to ask him the cause of an estrangement I regretted, I rode up to him.