‘It often takes no more than a minute to settle a man’s destiny,’ says an Arab poet, just as it suffices for one ray of light from heaven to disperse a cloud. At the most exciting part of my mental soliloquy I heard in the distance a concert of feminine voices shouting in all keys. One, however, dominated the rest; and such a voice! That of the heavenly spirits painted by Milton never made a more charming impression. I recognised it at once. Then, immediately afterwards, the door was flung open, and Mme. Récamier, surrounded by three young girls as beautiful as herself, rushed towards me, crying, ‘My friend, my poor Lolo, so it’s you!’ and her eyes, fixed on mine, grew moist, while the most grateful and refreshing tears I ever shed in my life coursed freely down my cheeks. ‘Yes, it is I,’ I said. This, ladies, is one of the chapters in my chequered life. You wished to hear it, and fashion alone must be the excuse for telling it. This little story wound up the evening. * * * * * Next day the majority of us met once more at a fête the dazzling pomp of which did not come up to the more intimate happiness of the small circle at the Comtesse de Fuchs’s. Lord Stewart, the English ambassador, gave a grand ball at the magnificent Stahremberg mansion, his residence, to celebrate the birthday of his sovereign. Nothing had been neglected to make the entertainment worthy of the memorable circumstances, and of the power represented by his lordship. Lord Stewart displayed a magnificence--or, to speak correctly, a profusion--of which few fêtes offered an example. His excellency, however, who loved to be eccentric in everything, and whose eccentricities were not always successful, had hit upon the idea to add to his invitation a courteous injunction to come to his ball in the costume of the time of Elizabeth. His countrymen understood him easily enough, and they were numerous in Vienna. The remainder of the guests had not complied with the request, but those who had adopted the costume were sufficiently numerous to produce a very remarkable effect. As to his excellency himself, he wore his uniform of colonel of hussars, the scarlet of which was covered with embroideries, and a great number of orders, civil and military, to such a degree as to have led one easily to mistake him for a living book of heraldry. Save for that singularity the ball was like any other: a great many sovereigns, princes, ‘grandes dames,’ political celebrities; a marvellous supper; a charming lottery of English trifles, which a lady dressed exactly like Queen Elizabeth distributed to the guests. After which we danced until daylight, a proceeding becoming rarer and rarer every day in Vienna, where the Court balls were seldom prolonged beyond midnight.