Princess Dashkoff being at Cardinal de Bernis’ in carnival time, boasted that she would not fear to face forty cannons, and yet started when the petards were fired to give the signal for the race. She was asked if she felt cold, and she answered that her imagination was colder than her person. The Grand-Duke Paul of Russia told the young Prince Dashkoff that he had already given him half of his friendship on his mother’s account, and would give him the other half when he knew him better. He agreed with the Princess to forget past times, and to think only of the present. When he was in St. Peter’s, he said that such a church gave a higher idea of the Divinity than any other temple he had ever entered. He thought the columns were not perfectly proper for the support of so noble an edifice, but he was too much struck with the general effect of the building to examine its details. The city of Rome, he remarked, offered the most august, and, at the same time, the most humiliating spectacle in the world, as it showed to what a height men could attain, and also how low they could descend.
Mr. Bagnall remarked, that, on meeting the Senator on the first day of carnival in his state coach surrounded by his guards, and with pieces of silk carried before him, it seemed to him as if the Romans wished to perpetuate the memory of their disgrace, and show how far they had sunk from their former position. If Cato could return on earth, what, he asked, would be his idea on encountering Prince Rezzonico as the representative of the Roman Senate, and Princess Santa Croce as the representative of the Roman matrons—particularly at Carnival time?
Countess Kaunitz, at Vienna, cheated intolerably at cards. As she was walking one day with Lord Finlater, a beggar asked alms of her, and she desired his Lordship to give the man a sequin. Lord F. demurred to such a large sum, but the lady insisted on his showing his generosity. “Ah! je vois, madame,” said he, “que c’est un cousin de Pam.”
When the Prince of Hepenstein was at Paris, he was one day at Madame de Barri’s toilette, surrounded with courtiers. She was saying how much she wished to have a little tiger, and every one was recommending how it should be fed. Some said with biscuits, others with macaroons, till the Prince, tired of all this nonsense, suggested: “Give him, madam, a courtier a day.”
Princess Dashkoff said she thought the Polish nation the most servile in the world till she saw the Italians.