Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

AN EMBARASSING QUESTION.43

teen years of age, fresh as a rose, and pretty as they were in France, in the times of Boucher. This young lady is the living model of one of the most agreeable portraits of that painter.

I expected the empress to give me my congé, but she commenced walking backwards and forwards before the house. Her majesty knew the interest I

took in all the family of Madame, who is a Polish

lady. Her majesty knew also that for some years

past one of the brothers of Madame had lived

at Paris. She turned the conversation to this young man's mode of life; and questioned me for a long time, with marked interest, regarding his sentiments, opinions and general character. This gave me every facility for saying of him all that my attachment dictated. She listened to me very attentively. "When I had ceased speaking, the Grand-duke addressing his mother, continued the same subject and said, " I met him at Ems, and liked him very well."

" And yet, it is a man thus distinguished whom they forbid to come here, because he retired into Germany after the revolution in Poland," cried

Madame , moved by her sisterly affection, and

using that freedom of expression of which the habit of living at court from her infancy has not deprived her. " But what has he done then ?" said the empress, addressing me, with an accent that was inimitable for the mixture of impatience and kindness which it expressed. I was embarrassed to find an answer to a question so direct, for it involved the delicate subject of politics, and to touch upon this subject might spoil everything.

The Grand-duke came to my aid with an affability