The negotiations with regard to his pic-nic dinner had met with fewer obstacles. In Vienna, it was easier to organise a pleasure-party than to obtain the restitution of a throne in an assembly which had seemingly taken it as a principle to despoil the feeble in favour of the strong. The aim of this general convocation was a subscription, at the head of which the admiral had placed his name. The proceeds, it was said, were to be devoted to the purchase of an immense silver lamp for the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. But it was also soon known that the sums Sidney Smith hoped to collect would be used for the repurchase of the Christians kept prisoners in Barbary. He had already proposed to the Congress a naval expedition for the purpose of annihilating those Barbary powers, of putting an end to their brigandage, and of destroying the disgraceful white-slave traffic in Africa for ever. Naturally, he was to take the command of this anti-piratic army. The Congress had, however, other things to think about than the organisation of a crusade, and this new Peter the Hermit had fain to be content with the simpler means of redeeming the slaves with the gold taken from the purses of the votaries of pleasure. Transplanting English usages into Austria, a dinner seemed to him the suitable bond for this humanitarian work. A great number of tickets were sold and the day was fixed. The Augarten, eminently suited for such a function, had been chosen. Yan, the _restaurateur par excellence_, had undertaken all the culinary details of that philanthropic gala fête. The price of the tickets had been fixed at three Dutch ducats, that for the ball to follow at ten florins. The dinner was to be on the table at five o’clock in the beautiful hall so often used by Maria-Theresa and Joseph II. The table itself was in the shape of an elongated horse-shoe; the walls of the apartments had practically disappeared under the standards of all nations. An orchestra had been erected at each end. The sovereigns had not only approved, but approved with great alacrity. The grand personages of the Congress, ministers, generals, and ambassadors, had been equally eager to contribute their ducats. Among the hundred and fifty guests there were as many highnesses as semi-sovereigns, great captains, and illustrious statesmen. Trumpeters on horseback, posted at intervals, announced the monarchs’ arrival by loud blasts. Those ‘glorious entrances’ as they are practised on the English stage proved that the admiral had not forgotten the theatre of Shakespeare.