Z----,[87] the son of a favourite minister of Catherine II., had recently lost his father, who left him a considerable fortune, estimated at more than thirty thousand serfs. I had seen a great deal of him while I was in St. Petersburg, where his birth, his gentle disposition, and his extensive attainments, much beyond his years, had made him a favourite in the highest circles. Having been appointed only a short time before a ‘gentleman of the chambers,’ he proposed to improve his education by travel, and he began at Vienna. It was starting with a most interesting preface the book of life, which, as he said, he wished to read from the first page to the last. ‘I have spent the evening at Prince Razumowski’s, who, as you know, is a relative. His palace is still littered with furniture, draperies, and flowers, the remains of the brilliant fête. Truly, the ruins of a ball are as interesting to contemplate as the ruins of monuments and empires.’ I, in my turn, told him of my meeting, and, the punch gradually dissipating my fit of melancholy, we began, like the selfish and unthinking young men we were, to joke about old men who, with the snows of many winters upon them, pretend to melt them in the sunny rays of love. I told him the adventure of the Comte de Maurepas which had so highly diverted the Court of Versailles at the period of his last ministry. Like the Prince de Ligne, M. de Maurepas, at eighty, had preserved the habits of extreme attentiveness to the fair sex which ought only to be indulged in by young men. The witty and handsome Marquise de ---- was the object of those octogenarian attentions. Worried by Maurepas’ assiduities, to which there could be no possible sequel, she determined to put an end to them. The superannuated Lovelace was seated one day near her in her boudoir, and was commenting upon his unhappiness, caused by the want of feeling of the woman he adored. The marquise appeared touched by the recital; the lover became more pressing, the marquise apparently more yielding. At last she murmured a faint consent, adding, however, ‘First go and bolt the door.’ Maurepas went to bolt it, not on the inside, but on the outside, and stole away on tiptoe without saying good-bye to the malicious fair one. The _dénouement_ met with our full approval. I was expecting next morning two Hungarian horses, which I had been assured were the best trotters in Vienna. Being anxious to try them at once, I asked Z---- if he would come with me to the Prater to do so. He promised. While talking about trotters, none of which in Europe come up, to my thinking, to those harnessed to the sledges at Moscow for the runs on the frozen Moskowa, the comte got into bed, being tired by the mazurkas in which he had the night before been compelled to initiate some German ladies, who experienced great difficulties in their transition from the stiff German minuet to the graceful elasticity of the Polish dance.