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

THE FKENCII AMBASSADOR.259

and I doubt not the young man pleases as much as he is pleased. He travels to advantage, is well informed, and collects numerous facts, which he can number better than he can class ; for at his age it is more easy to sum up than to arrange. But what a richly varied conversation is that of our ambassador ! and how much will literature regret the time which he gives to politics, unless the latter be only a study by which the former will profit hereafter ! Never was a man more perfectly adapted to his place, or one who played his part with greater ability, united with more apparent ease and freedom from any assumption of importance. It is this combination which appears to me to constitute, in the present day, the condition of success for every Frenchman occupied with public affairs. No one, since the revolution of July, has fulfilled, so well as M. de Barante, the difficult charge of French ambassador at Petersburg.

In connection with the marriage fetes c;iven in honour of the Grand Duchess Marie, a little incident occurred which will remind the reader of what often happened at the court of the Emperor Napoleon.

The grand chamberlain had died shortly before the marriage, and his office had been given to Count Golowkin, formerly Russian ambassador to China, to which country he could not obtain access. This nobleman, entering upon the functions of his office on the occasion of the marriage, had less experience than his predecessor. A young chamberlain, appointed by him, managed to incur the wrath of the emperor, and exposed his superior to a rather severe reprimand: it was at the ball of the Grand Duchess Helena.

The emperor was talking with the Austrian ambas-