On being questioned, I told them all about my visitor of that morning, about his economical journey with nothing at the end of it but a simple letter of introduction, and about the coincidence of his reaching Vienna but a couple of days after my own arrival. The Comte de Witt had listened very attentively. ‘Your young man’s courage is worthy of consideration,’ he said, ‘and inasmuch as he has been in the Guards of Honour, he is probably at home on horseback. Send him to me to-morrow morning; I’ll find him something to do.’ I thanked the comte; then, turning to the other guests: ‘This is my countryman’s second step on the road of chance in one day,’ I said, ‘You’ll admit that if a letter of recommendation is often addressed at random, it now and again happens to get into the hands of Dame Fortune.’ ‘Yes,’ remarked the young Comte de Saint-Marsan, ‘a letter of recommendation sometimes constitutes a whole fortune. Would you like to have an instance of this?’ And without further ado he told us with his habitual grace and sprightliness the following anecdote in connection with a period which already seemed far removed from us in the past, although the actors had scarcely left the stage. ‘A young Parisian poet,’ began Marsan, ‘named Dubois, who was probably as poor in wit as he was in money, had exhausted all his faculties in singing the powers that were without getting the smallest favour. As a forlorn hope, he addressed an ode to Princesse Pauline, the favourite sister of Napoleon. In his poetical confusion, and without reflecting upon the fate of Racine when the latter presented to Louis XIV. his _Memoir on the Wretched Condition of Peoples_, Dubois mingled with his praises of the princess counsels to Mars, embroidered on a philanthropic dream of universal peace. The greatest effects are often due to the most trivial causes. It so happened that one of the princess’s waiting-maids was a distant relative of the poet, and she seized a favourable opportunity of presenting the epistle to her highness, who only read the rhymes of “Pauline” and “divine,” recurring at almost every strophe, and promised her influence to the author of such beautiful and kind sentiments. “But where is he?” asked Princesse Pauline. “There,” said the relative, pointing to the ante-chamber. “In that case let him come in,” remarked the princess, and in less time than it takes to tell, the poet enters the perfumed boudoir of Pauline, and finds himself _tête-à-tête_ with his future Providence. “Well, what can I do for you?” asked the princess, after having listened to the usual compliments. “If Madame by her influence could get me some small post in this or that government office, I should for ever be grateful to her.” “A letter of recommendation to Fouché may do the thing. Not later than yesterday he said that I never asked for any favours. I’ll put him to the test. Do you think that this would suit you?” Naturally