‘If illusion could provide me to-day with its mirror,’ he said, ‘how gladly would I exchange all this splendour for the simple dress of an ensign in my father’s regiment! I was only sixteen when I donned that dress for the first time; I imagined then that at thirty one must be very old. Time changes everything. To-day, at eighty, I think myself still young, although some cavillers say that I am too young. It does not matter, I am doing all I can to prove that I am still young enough. After all, my career has been a happy one, and neither remorse nor ambition, nor jealousy has troubled its course. I have steered my barque pretty evenly, and until I enter that of Charon I shall continue to fancy myself, in spite of those who insist upon considering me as old.’ Even while bantering himself in that way, there was a charm about his words of which it is difficult to convey an idea. I kept telling him that age had glided off him without leaving a mark, and that time honoured him by forgetting him. He believed my words, and his handsome face was lighted up with happiness. On going downstairs we found some of the savants who constantly worried him, and his features lost their happy expression, although he managed to dismiss the intruders with a few polite remarks, and went on his way. ‘How I detest those savants of verbosity, those gatherers of clever sayings, those walking dictionaries, whose sole stock-in-trade in the matter of genius is their memory! The best book to study is the world itself, but that book will always be a closed one to them,’ he said. In a few moments we were rumbling in the direction of Schönbrunn. Unfortunately, the prince’s carriage did not deserve the compliment I had just addressed to the prince himself. It was impossible to believe that the vehicle had ever been young, and its springs piteously cried out to be exchanged for a set more elastic and in keeping with the requirements of our own time. I can still picture the cumbrous, grey conveyance drawn by two bony white horses. The panels displayed the prince’s scutcheon, surmounted by the motto of the House of Egmont, whence the prince sprung: ‘_Quô res cumque cadunt, semper stat linea recta._’ Behind this ancient coach stood a kind of footman, an old Turk, six feet high, a present from Prince Potemkin at the assault of Ismaël, and who bore the name of the conquered town. The marshal, however, had the art of abridging distances, just as he had the art of supplying the scantiness of his dinner-entertainments, by his conversation. The journey of nearly an hour seemed very short, and it was with some surprise that I beheld the gates of the imperial country-seat.