Mr. Elliot,[15] our Minister at Dresden, is a very pleasing man, about forty; his style of conversation and tone of voice are highly captivating. He has a large family of little cherubs, and a charming daughter who marries Mr. Paine this week.
March 10.—The society here possesses many very charming individuals, but is not what the French call montée sur un ton agréable, a phrase as easy to comprehend as difficult to translate. I think I see, and am sure I feel, a certain constraint, which destroys all enjoyment. I have scarcely ever been less at my ease than in the company I have frequented since my arrival. Yet I have not wanted that encouragement which is usually all that is necessary to inspire confidence. Mr. Elliot in general makes me a daily visit, and when he omits it, apologises as for a breach of duty. I have constant invitations to his house, where I always find a small party and a little sociable supper. Mad. Münster, my most intimate female acquaintance, forgets nothing which can contribute to my amusement. I have gone with her to morning exhibitions and evening assemblies. Among the latter, that of Madame de Loss, wife to the first Minister, was most brilliant—as much so as any I have seen in London. A numerous suite of rooms, furnished with taste; a very large society, dressed with more magnificence, though not with as much elegance, as in England; and a hostess whose address and appearance would dignify any situation. She is near sixty, but still a very fine woman, her looks English, her manners French.
I have also been at a concert, where I heard an Italian, Mad. Paravicini, play delightfully on the violin. She has infinite expression, and imitates the graces of the voice better than any one I have ever heard. She manages the instrument well, and avoids all the grotesque which one annexes to the idea of a female fiddler. An assembly at the Hanoverian Minister’s, with a few evenings passed in very small family circles (to which it is a great compliment to admit a stranger), have filled up all my afternoons, except one, which I passed at the opera, where I saw Axur, by Salieri; the music is very pleasing, but the plot absurd, and the hero kills himself in a moment of pique from causes very inadequate to the effect. The orchestra is the best I ever heard. That of Munich alone, in Europe, disputes the palm.
I saw a good collection of pictures at the Comte de Hagendorn’s, where I breakfasted. A St. Sebastian, by Raphael, was the most remarkable piece. I did not think a martyrdom could be so pleasing. I forgot the arrow in his breast because he seemed to have done so himself, and, like him, I was too much absorbed in the thought of his approaching beatitude not to be insensible to the idea of mere bodily pain. It is a wonderfully fine picture. At the first glance you approve, after a moment’s examination you admire, and from admiration you pass to that state in which the whole soul is concentrated in the eyes; you cease to approve or admire, you only feel, and, having totally forgot the artist, identify yourself with the object he has created.
Yesterday I was presented at Court. Here it is an evening assembly without any form. Women are never invited, but pay their respects on Sunday evenings, as often as they please. The Electress has the greatest good humour, ease, and condescension in her manner. Her pearl necklace is the finest I ever saw. The Elector has something fixed, glassy, and embarrassing in his eyes. Their only child is a fine young woman, about seventeen. The whole family, I need not say, receive strangers with the utmost politeness, for this seems to me so universal in Germany, it ceases to be the object of a remark. The Elector is said to be a good and a religious man; even those who seem to dislike him, do not contest this point. The Electress said she now gave no balls, because the Elector disapproves of such pleasures while Europe was in its present unhappy state. The Court never mix in society. When the Elector’s uncle was at Dresden, dying, for several months, none of his family visited him, as he was not within the walls of the palace, and it would have been a breach of etiquette. At Mad. de Loss’s, Alexis Orloff was presented to me, and I was introduced to his daughter. He does not look like the frontispiece to his History. His figure is colossal and massy, but his air is not savage, and his countenance is rather mild than otherwise. The recollection of the atrocities that he had committed embarrassed me so, that I retain no very distinct idea of his person and address.[16] He does not speak French, but we conversed a little in Italian. His daughter has a pleasing address. She is pale, sallow, and delicate in her appearance, with a gentle, modest demeanour, and fine expressive dark eyes. She wore no ornaments except rows of the finest pearls. Her diamonds are valued at £40,000. Orloff adores her, and declares she shall marry whomsoever she pleases. She conversed in very good French, and speaks English wonderfully well in proportion to the time she has learned it. Her father wears the picture of Catherine the Second covered, instead of crystal, with a single diamond.
March 12.—Dresden is filled with foreigners from all parts, chiefly Poles and Russians. Of the latter Mr. Elliot told me two horrid anecdotes. He was invited to dine with a Russian major; and one of his servants, a recruit who had been thought too sickly to serve in the army, laid the cloth rather awkwardly. His master beat him furiously, first with a stick, next with an iron bar. ‘Good heavens,’ cried Mr. Elliot, ‘you will kill the man.’ ‘Why,’ replied the Major, ‘it is very hard that I have killed seven or eight, and never been able to make a good servant yet.’ At another time Mr. Elliot dined with a gentleman who talked of the aversion the Cossacks had to the Jews. ‘Now, I dare say,’ cried he, ‘this little fellow behind me,’ turning to a Cossack of about thirteen, ‘has dispatched them by the score. Come, tell me how many did you ever kill at once.’ ‘The most I ever killed at once was eleven,’ answered the young savage, with a grin. ‘Impossible!’ said Mr. Elliot, ‘that boy could have killed eleven men!’ ‘Oh yes,’ answered he, ‘for my father bound their hands, and I stabbed them.’
March 14.—The Princess Fürstenberg and Mad. Münster increase their attentions daily. I have been confined by a cold in consequence of a round of visits paid to the wives of the different Ministers previous to being presented. I did not expect to be admitted, and was not prepared in my dress for going up and down immense flights of stone stairs in frost and snow. My indisposition has given these amiable women an opportunity of showing me unceasing kindness (I wish, however, it did not display itself so much in writing notes). The Princess heard me wish one evening for the translation of a German poem, and sat up till three o’clock next morning to accomplish it, that I might receive it the moment I woke.
March 15.—Mr. and Mrs. Greathead and their son are persons whom I regret leaving. They seem to have excellent hearts, and possess many talents and acquirements. He is author of The Regent, and said to be extremely well informed. She seems a lively, frank, decided, hasty, clever woman, with a ready flow of ideas and copiousness of diction.
March 16.—Last night I was invited to a supper at the Prussian Minister’s. The company were chiefly Russians; five English were asked, and Lavalette, the French Envoy, and his wife, were also of the party. It has caused great sensation here, as it is said that it was highly improper for a person in that line to invite either Russians or English to meet Lavalette. I did not go, but I have seen him and his wife at a public ball. He is unpowdered, mean, squat, and dirty. She is prettyish, and very becomingly drest, but without much attention to decency. Her arm is quite bare, from the bottom of her sleeve, about an inch below her shoulder, to the top of her glove, about an inch above her elbow. Any exposure one is unused to, offends.
March 20, Prague.—Left Dresden for Vienna, and slept last night here. The road is very interesting in the commencement of this journey, particularly from Aussig to Leitmaritz, where it winds through a romantic range of hills by the side of the Elbe. After you part from the river, the country becomes in general a dull flat. Prague, as you approach it, has an appearance of grandeur. It is, however, though spacious, a dirty, ill-built town, with very high houses, and very narrow streets. You cannot take a step without being reminded you are in a Roman Catholic country; it is so peopled with Madonnas and saints. I was so fatigued, I remained to-day at the inn (Rothes Haus) where Suwarrow lived three months of the last year. He rose every day at two hours after midnight, dined at eight, and went to bed at three. ‘He is a great bigot and a great hog,’ the waiter told me, of whom I asked two or three questions about him, but was soon obliged to desist. He was afraid I did not understand what was the species of company Suwarrow associated with; and after long seeking a French word to explain it, found out that of coquette, which he seemed to think a perfect translation of the coarser expression he had used in German.