We, the Prince de Ligne and I, wandered through those drawing-rooms, ablaze with light, passing in review those delicious faces, representing all kinds of beauty as they successively went by. The Princesse Marie de Metternich and the Comtesse Batthyani, with wistful and somewhat melancholy features, tall, slight, and flexible like reeds; the two charming sisters Eléonore and Pauline de Schwartzenberg, beaming with youth and freshness; the Princesse Yblonowska, the Comtesses Sophie de Woyna and Louise de Durkeim, both distinguished by their slightly dreamy looks; the Comtesse Julie Zichy, captivatingly graceful; the Comtesses de Marassi, d’Urgate, de Schönborn, and the Princesse Hélène Souvaroff, whose portrait I have already sketched; and the Comtesse de Paar. In short, we feasted our eyes on delightful faces, lighted up every now and again by rapid smiles, or positively basking in the full light of careless joy and happiness--faces that soothed the mind and captivated all glances. Emperor Alexander had opened the ball with the Empress of Austria with a ‘polonaise,’ a kind of dancing march, the regular preamble to every Court ball. In an adjoining room some members of the corps diplomatique were gravely engaged at whist, a recreation which also seemed an indispensable part of the European transactions in progress. The ‘polonaise,’ though, soon interfered with the silence necessary to the game. The band had given the signal and, too cramped in the principal room, the long file of dancers marched along under the guidance of the czar, invaded the whole of the palace, and twined round and round the serious quartets of the players, and by an enormously round-about way returned to its starting-point in perfect order, never ceasing the course of its graceful evolutions. Towards the end of the evening, the guests formed themselves here and there into groups. Some young men arranged pleasure parties for the next morning, while the representatives of Europe gravely discussed the burning questions of the moment. In one part of the room, M. de Talleyrand, ensconced in an armchair, is talking to the Prince Leopold of Naples, while M. de Labrador, the Chevalier de Los Rios and the Cardinal Gonzalvi, the Marquis de Marialva, the young Comte de Luchesini and Charles de Rechberg, in a circle, are standing around. The conversation runs on King Murat. With his habitual phlegm, M. de Talleyrand drops some of those grave and prophetic sentences which, rightly interpreted, might be considered the forerunner of that improvised sovereign’s fall.[66] M. de la Tour du Pin, the ambassador of France, was the centre of another group, composed of his colleague, M. Alexis de Noailles, MM. de Wintzingerode, Pozzo di Borgo, the Marquis de Saint Marsan, the Comte de Rossi, etc.