The Austrians are naturally bright and pleasure-loving, for on the basis of their German ancestry, which gives them a certain simplicity, are implanted the livelier qualities of the French and Italians, with which races their own has mingled. It is to this mingling with other nations that the noble classes have survived at all and not died out enfeebled by marriages with too near kin. Mr. Whitman sums up some of the foreign alliances thus: The Princes Rohan point to Brittany; the Princes Mensdorf-Pouilly, the Counts Dampierre, the Bouquoy to France; the Hoyos to Spain; the Princes Croy, the Counts Fiquelmont to Belgium; the Dukes of Beaufort-Spontin to Lorraine; the Princes Odescalchi, Clasy, Montenuovo, the Counts Palavacini, Bianchi, Paar, Montecuculli, and many others to Italy. Moreover, the aristocratic population of Austria itself has long had nearer home, in the Hungarian, the Polish, the northern Italian aristocratic element, a large variety of noble blood with which to renovate itself, and thus to counteract the ill effects so often seen in princely houses of too close intermarriage. The sorrows which have fallen on the royal house, and the great age of the Emperor have thrown a shadow over the nobility. But the middle-class people are not affected by it. A gayer, brighter, and withal more orderly crowd is rarely to be found in the capital of any kingdom. The Austrian takes his pleasure lightly, sipping his national wines beneath the avenues of trees in the wide boulevards. He revels in good music and fine acting. He is not extravagant and keeps wonderfully early hours. As is natural in such a cosmopolitan country, every race may be found represented on the boulevards and in the cafés. Greeks, Turks, Jews, Czechs, Germans, Slavs, and Magyars are to be met everywhere.