[106] An allusion to the business connected with the Fief of Sagan, concerning which negotiations were then in progress.
[107] The two buildings were opposite one another, and the wind drove the flames towards the palace of the Prince and Princess of Prussia.
[108] A reference to the Archduke Stephan, son of the Archduke Joseph, Count Palatine of Hungary, who was then staying at Berlin on his way to Hanover.
[109] Prince Augustus of Prussia, the younger brother of Prince Louis Ferdinand, who was killed in 1806 at Saalfeld, and the son of Prince Ferdinand, the last brother of Frederick the Great, was never married. He possessed a considerable fortune which he had increased by unscrupulous methods at the expense of his relations, and made a will by which the property of which he could not dispose reverted to the crown of Prussia, while the rest was bequeathed to his numerous natural children; so that he thus deprived his sister, Princess Radziwill, of the inheritance which should have gone to her. This scandal led to a famous law suit, which was lost by the Radziwills and attracted much public attention in Berlin.
[110] The Russian Emperor, after a stay at Potsdam, barely escaped assassination as he was returning to his kingdom. As he passed through Posen on September 19 the people were mourning the death of General von Grolman, who had died of heart disease on September 15. A great favourite with every class of the population, the General had been buried on that same day, September 18, amid a great crowd of people. Advantage of the crowd was taken a short time afterwards to fire upon the carriage of the aides-de-camp, which was mistaken for the carriage of the Czar. Several bullets were found in the carriage and in the cloaks of the officers, but the event was never cleared up.
[111] The Hohenzollern-Hechingen.
[112] The Polish dynasty founded by Piast, which proceeded from 842-1370. A branch of the Piast family retained the Duchy of Silesia until 1675.
[113] Extract from a letter.
[114] The Memoirs of the Prince de Talleyrand contain an account of the scene to which these memoirs here allude. In the Appendix to this volume the reader will find the story, the truth of which is attested by M. de Vitrolles himself, as it is given in the Appendix to the second volume of the Memoirs of M. de Talleyrand.
[115] Extract from a letter to M. de Bacourt.