‘No, you are wrong. It is not that. For the last four months they have been debating without coming to an agreement. All at once Lord Castlereagh is called to England for the opening of Parliament. You may easily conceive that he couldn’t return empty-handed; consequently he put some life into the deliberations, and hurried the conclusion of affairs, in order to show some results. What a pity it is the other nations haven’t some parliaments to be opened! ‘The Austrian Court is right enough,’ the Baron went on. ‘The European Areopagus has decided upon the fate of Naples and its imprisoned King Joachim. Its throne is going to be restored to the Bourbon branch. You are aware that the Imperial Chancellery decided not to notify officially the death of Queen Caroline, not knowing what title to give her. That bit of awkwardness has disappeared too.’ ‘Yes, I remember that they took hold of a very honest pretext. The Court, it was said, would not cast a damper on the fêtes of the Congress by shedding official tears for the daughter of Maria-Theresa. In reality, the Court did not dare, or did not want, to decide the question of etiquette reserved for diplomacy, and now they are going to assume mourning for the poor queen at the moment when it would be more sensible to sing a _Te Deum_ for the return of her husband to the throne of his fathers.’ ‘One of your influential diplomatists here has a sweet trick of his own to get news from Paris to Vienna for the purpose of dishing it up in a peculiar fashion. He sends to his wife, Madame la Duchesse, the draught of a despatch. The docile secretary transcribes it, and a week after the carrier brings it back. Then they show, under the seal of the greatest confidence, notes from the Court of the Tuileries which have neither been dictated nor put in cypher there. In reality, they might save them the jolting of the journey. ‘Oh, by the by, have you heard of the duel which has just been fought between the Prince de ----, and the Comte ----?’ ‘Yes, I have heard that the two champions were both wounded, but were so little hurt that their friends are not in the least uneasy.’