When Prince Koslowski and I entered the drawing-rooms, the Emperor Alexander, the Kings of Prussia and of Bavaria, several other princes and sovereigns, and a considerable number of strangers of distinction had already arrived. The whole of the Russian aristocracy and the Russian celebrities at that moment forgathered in Vienna seemed to have appointed to meet there. MM. de Nesselrode, Pozzo di Borgo, the Comte Razumowski, Russian ambassador to the Austrian Court, and the Prince Volkonski were simply a trifle more conspicuous than the rest; but among this crowd of familiar faces I might well have fancied myself transferred to one of the hospitable palaces of St. Petersburg four years previously. Among this crowd of notabilities, special mention should be made, in virtue of their high position and their intellectual charm, of the various members of the Narischkine family. The Narischkines are closely related to the Imperial House of Russia. The mother of Peter the Great was a Narischkine; hence they consider themselves of an origin too noble to have any need of titles. In fact, that of ‘prince’ is so common in Russia as scarcely to constitute a distinction. The elder of the two brothers enjoyed the reputation of being the wittiest man at the Court of Emperor Alexander. His conversation was as varied as it was amusing, and a collection of his witticisms and epigrams would make a bulky volume, though they were neither as subtle nor as brilliant as those of the Prince de Ligne, not to mention those of Talleyrand; but when by chance, during the Congress, these three men were together, then, unquestionably, there was a real display of intellectual fireworks. His daughter, the Princesse Hélène, had, in addition to great physical beauty, a naturally brilliant intellect and a noble, sympathetic heart. She married the son of the famous General Souvaroff, but her husband was drowned during a journey in Wallachia. In spite of the warning of his post-boy, he insisted upon crossing the little river Rimnik when it was swollen by the rains and had become a downright torrent. He was carried away by the current, without the slightest possibility of any one coming to his aid. At the time of Paul I.‘s death, the princess’s father occupied an apartment exactly under that of the emperor; she herself was a mere babe. Awakened by the noise and tumult that followed the assassination of Catherine the Great’s son, her nurse took her into her arms, and in her fear hid her in an isolated and disused sentry-box, where she was only found next morning.