Only a very few years went by, and the tactics of the illustrious reformer began to bear ample fruit. Under Catherine I. and under Elizabeth, pleasure followed the same direction as Russian influence and power. The latter princess was especially fond of masked balls. She gave a magnificent one on each New Year’s Day. The ladies were bound to appear as men, and the men as women. The Empress, who looked very well in male attire, was particularly fond of that disguise. Then came the reign of Catherine II. which seemed fated to exhaust all kind of glories and pleasures. Apart from her magnificent carousals, one is reminded of her receptions and balls at Tzarskoë-Selo, and of the fêtes of Potemkin in the Palace of the Taurus. Beyond these, imagination cannot go. Finally, during the first years of this century, and at the period of the Congress of Vienna, there was no nation which understood pleasure better than the Russians, and stamped that pleasure with such extreme politeness and grandeur. [Illustration: PRINCE METTERNICH.] Consequently, each day saw a new fête succeed to that of yesterday, without this continuation appearing to bring satiety. While M. de Stackelberg celebrated the birthday of his sovereign, Emperor Francis invited for the same purpose the crowned heads, the princes, and the other political or military notabilities in one of the great halls of the imperial residence. A splendid dinner had preceded the concert. Two days before, the Prince de Metternich had also given a great ball at which the majority of the guests of the Austrian Court had been present. It has just struck me that I am nearing the end of my course, and that as yet I have not spoken of one of the most conspicuous personages of our epoch. Almost everybody has tried to portray M. de Metternich. Like M. de Talleyrand, he has had all the honours of history bestowed upon him during his lifetime, but although his portrait has been traced more than once by more skilful hands than mine, I cannot resist the desire to show him as I was enabled to judge him--behind the glamour of power and political reserve in which he has lived since his youth. At that period M. de Metternich might still pass muster as a young man. His features were perfectly regular and handsome, his smile was full of graciousness, his face expressed both benevolence and the most delicate intelligence. He was of average height, and of elegant proportions. Both his gait and demeanour were marked by much nobleness. It is, above all, from the handsome design of Isabey, representing the plenipotentiaries at the Congress, that one may gain a more or less exact idea of all those outward advantages of which he himself was by no means insensible. At the first glance, one felt delighted at seeing one of those men to whom nature had vouchsafed her most seductive gifts, and whom nature, as a rule, seems to take a delight in calling only to the frivolous successes of a society life.