Vienna, June 19, 1841.—Yesterday I went with my sisters to visit the Imperial Picture Gallery. I am surprised that it is not better known, for it contains some most beautiful works. It lies outside the town in a palace called the Belvedere, which was built by Prince Eugène of Savoy. The interior is very handsome.
I dined at the house of Princess Paul Esterhazy and with Prince and Princess Metternich and their daughter, Prince Wenzel, Lichtenstein, Schulenburg, Lord Rokeby, Count Haugwitz and Baron von Hügel. Princess Esterhazy was very amusing with her fear of Lady Jersey as mother-in-law. The marriage, however, has not been definitely settled.
Vienna, June 21, 1841.—I am delighted to hear that you like Fenelon's Letters.[ [30] They explain everything in a form which illustrates the faithful and courageous devotion paid to this kindly and holy Archbishop by the courtiers of the great King. He is able to give a charm and a grandeur to religion, to make it at once simple and attractive by its loftiness. If to read the story with his intercourse with his friends does not produce conversion, at any rate no one can fail to derive from it a love of goodness, of beauty, and a desire to lead a better life as a prelude to a good death.
The History of Port Royal by Sainte-Beuve is certainly interesting. It is a great subject, but treated in a style which is neither sufficiently serious nor simple, and cannot worthily represent the austere and imposing figures of Jansenism.
Vienna, June 25, 1841.—I propose to start next Wednesday and from Prague to take the road which will bring me back to my nieces in Saxony; from thence I shall go by Lusatia to upper Silesia to see my sister Hohenzollern who will be there at that time, and shall afterwards go to my own property at Wartenberg where I hope to be on July 26.
Vienna, June 26, 1841.—Yesterday I dined with Prince Metternich; only the family were present. I went on to the theatre and afterwards to the Volksgarten, a kind of Tivoli, where Strauss plays his waltzes, where Styrians sing and all the good or bad society of Vienna meets during this season. My sisters who were with me, then took me to their house where we had tea.
Lord Palmerston rouses much discontent as he continually raises some new obstacle when the Egyptian question is at the point of conclusion. His conduct is strangely tactless. All kinds of conjectures are in the air and much exasperation was displayed where I was dining yesterday.
Vienna, June 28, 1841.—The weather here yesterday was most remarkable: after midday a violent wind arose which raised clouds of dust, completely shrouding the town and suburbs; the burning wind was a real sirocco which withered and exhausted every one.
I went to mass at the Capuchin church to say goodbye to Father Francis who gave me his blessing. I then returned home to wait for Marshal Marmont who had asked permission to read me forty pages from the manuscript of his memoirs which he has devoted to justifying his conduct during July 1830. I was unable to refuse. I learnt nothing particularly fresh, as I knew all the remarkable facts which clearly prove that the imbecility of the Government was incomparable and that the Marshal was very unfortunate in being called to conduct a business both ill-devised and ill-prepared; so he needed no justification in my eyes, but I was interested to hear full details of the scene with the Dauphin, of which I knew nothing and the words and gestures of which pass the powers of imagination.[ [31] The reading was interrupted by various reflections and was further prolonged for the reason that the Marshal reads slowly and continually stammers and hums and haws. His delivery is extremely laboured.
I then went with my brother-in-law, Schulenberg, to dine with the Countess Nandine Karolyi at Hitzinger, a village near Schönbrunn. I was by no means anxious to go but as she had been so kind as to ask me, I could not refuse. She lives in one half of a charming cottage which belongs to Charles von Hügel, the traveller whose infatuation for Princess Metternich drove him to spend seven years in the East. On his return he built this house and has filled it with curiosities from India. He lives in one half of the house and Nandine in the other. It is prettily situated, surrounded with flowers and looks quite English. I was by no means delighted with the dinner. The mistress of the house is eccentric, an exaggeration of the Vienna type, and the gentlemen about her corresponded. I went away as soon as possible and spent an hour in farewell talk with Princess Louise of Schönburg.