In the drawing-room we found some visitors; they were strangers of distinction, who, called to Vienna from every coign and nook of Europe, had craved an introduction to this living marvel of the previous century. Their number also contained several ‘lion-hunters,’ obtruding their presence from sheer curiosity, and for the sake of being enabled to say: ‘I have seen the Prince de Ligne,’ or else for the purpose of ‘rubbing minds with him,’ by carefully picking up his anecdotes and his sallies, which they afterwards hawked about, considerably disfigured, among their own sets. Having quickly paid his voluntary toll in the shape of some witty or polite remark to each of those groups, he left them, as if his task had been fulfilled, and came up to his grandson, the Comte de Clary, with whom I happened to be chatting. ‘I remember,’ he said, ‘having begun one of my letters to Jean-Jacques Rousseau with a--“As you do not care, Monsieur, either for demonstrative people or for demonstrations....” A few notes couched in similar terms would not be out of place among some of the notable people here this evening; but they are so inflated with their own merit as to be unable to decipher their own addresses. And as, moreover, they are most obstinate and difficult to shake off, let us go and have a look at others where there will be a little more elbow-room. The ball is waiting for us. Come along, my lads, I’ll give you a lesson in taking your leave in French fashion.’ And this man, extraordinary in every relation of life, flitting away with the light step of a mere youth, suited the action to the word and positively ran to his carriage, laughing all the while at the boyish trick and at the disappointment of all those insipid talkers who merely courted his society to make him listen to their vapid utterances. It was nine o’clock when we reached the imperial palace, better known as the Hofburg. That ancient residence had been specially chosen for those ingenious _momons_, character-masques in which the incognito of the domino often lent itself to political combinations in themselves masterpieces of intrigue and conception. The principal hall was magnificently lighted up, and running around it, there was a circular gallery giving access to huge rooms arranged for supper. On seats, disposed like an amphitheatre, there were crowds of ladies, some of whom merely wore dominos, while the majority represented this or that character. It would be difficult to imagine a scene more dazzling than this gathering of women, all young and beautiful, and each attired in a style most becoming to her beauty. All the centuries of the past, all the regions of the inhabited globe seemed to have appointed to meet in that graceful circle. Several orchestras executed at regular intervals valses and polonaises: in adjoining galleries or rooms minuets were danced with particularly Teutonic gravity, which feature did not constitute the least comic part of the picture.