We went into a small drawing-room, where on a table were all the presents that had been sent from Paris. There were some from the Duchesse de Luynes, from the Princesse de Vaudémont, from Mme. Jyskewicz, and from many other ladies, who, knowing his fondness for those delicate attentions, never failed to send them at the three periods to which he had referred during luncheon. On a couch were laid out all his orders, and there were enough and to spare. Odd to relate, the most brilliant ones in the way of precious stones had been given by the minor princes. M. de Talleyrand went on chatting to us for a little while, his most casual sentences being marked by a graceful unaffectedness, so strongly contrasting with his diplomatic reputation. His expressions were, however, always simple; they, as it were, derived their value from the attitude and the courtesy of the grand seigneur, which were not at fault. When he finally left us to go to M. de Metternich’s, I was not at all in agreement with what was said about him. People pretended that M. de Talleyrand in his dressing-gown was, as far as intellectual conversation went, a different man from M. de Talleyrand in Court dress; in a word, that the latter was practically indispensable to him. Personally, I have seen him in the political drawing-rooms of Paris, London, and Vienna, and only once was I received amidst his nearest and dearest. Well, among my recollections of that celebrated man, the last-mentioned is unquestionably the most constantly present to my mind, and also the most vivid. Among the drawing-rooms capable of vying with that of M. de Talleyrand in the matter of ‘exquisite form,’ elegance, and delicate observance of society’s unwritten code, one was bound to name, first of all, that of the Princesse-Maréchale Lubomirska.[101] Having taken up her residence in Vienna, she appears to have accepted the task of keeping open house for all the strangers who wished to be presented to her. No one could convey a more exact idea of the fabulous existence of all those Polish grandees in their most splendid days. She, as it were, combined within herself all that was known about the grandeur of the Potockis and the Czartoryskis, the magnificence of the Radziwills, the noble splendour of the Lubomirskis, and of all the others, the recollection of whom has become imperishable. Her palace situated near the fortifications, her servants, the footing of her establishment, in fact everything, represented a partly European, partly Asiatic whole. Being particularly intimate with her grandson Frederick, I had been welcomed as an old acquaintance.