Everybody knows the sequel of this comedy, and how the pledges were kept. When that dream was over, Potocki simply studied to make the woman he idolised thoroughly happy. The art, the talent, the pomp and splendour of various parts of the world were all called into requisition to add to her happiness. To satisfy her desires and her slightest fancies, he absolutely realised all that the imagination may conceive in the way of fairy tales. One day she expressed a wish for a set of pearl ornaments. The count asked for a twelvemonth to offer one worthy of her. He sent to every capital of Europe and Asia the drawing of a pearl, and informed the jewellers that he would pay a thousand louis for each one that equalled the model in size and brilliancy. They gathered a hundred, and at the next St. Sophia’s day he clasped round the charming neck of his wife a necklace worth a hundred thousand louis. At the death of Comte Potocki, Sophie practically found herself at the head of his colossal fortune, either in virtue of direct personal gift or as the trustee of the children born of her second marriage. It was shortly after this that I made her acquaintance at St. Petersburg, and accompanied her to her estate at Tulczim. Even at that period the celebrated Sophie was a most ravishing creature. Her beauty was really marvellous, and reminded me of nothing so much as the models the Greek statuaries of old must have employed to create their divinities. It would require volumes to convey an idea of the life led at Tulczim. Sophie saw life from so high a point that she no longer seemed to belong to the world surrounding her, which her beauty kept incessantly at her feet. It was not that she was vain or imperious, but she was beautiful, and she knew it. This never-ceasing worship had made an idol of her, and from the altar on which they had placed her, she paid the incense with a look and the praise with a smile. Queen in virtue of her beauty, she seemed to say, ‘The world--I am the world!’ Her palace was the temple of hospitality. The stranger who came to ask an asylum was royally put up for a fortnight: horses, carriages, and servants were placed at his disposal, without his being obliged to show himself to his hostess, but on the sixteenth day he was to present himself, if only in order to take his leave. And that sort of thing, be it remembered, was practised, not under the tent of the Arab of the desert, nor in the hut of a Laplander, but in an enchanted palace of which Sophie was the Fairy Queen. No wonder that she often said, ‘People have paid me visits at Tulczim which have lasted for three years.’ I remember, among others, a fête she gave to Madame Narischkine, Alexander the First’s friend. It lasted for three days. About the same period I accompanied her on a journey to the Crimea, to take possession of some territory which had been granted to her by an imperial favour, and on the site of which she wished to found a town named Sophiopolis.