As to court episodes during my stay, one especially dwells in my memory. On arriving rather early one evening, I noticed a large, portly man, wearing the broad red ribbon of the Legion of Honor, and at once saw that he could be no other than Prince Victor Napoleon, the Bonaparte heir to the crown of France. Though he was far larger than the great Napoleon, and had the eyes of his mother, Princess Clothilde, his likeness to his father, Prince Napoleon ("Plon-Plon"), whom I had seen years before at Paris, was very marked. Presently his brother, who had just arrived from his regiment in the Caucasus, came up and began conversation with him. Both seemed greatly vexed at something. On the arrival of the Italian ambassador, he naturally went up and spoke to the prince, who was the grandson of King Victor Emmanuel; but the curious thing was that the French ambassador, Count de Montebello, and the prince absolutely cut each other. Neither seemed to have the remotest idea that the other was in the room, and this in spite of the fact that the Montebellos are descended from Jean Lannes, the stable-boy whom Napoleon made a marshal of France and Duke of Montebello, thus founding the family to which the French ambassador belonged. The show of coolness on the part of the imperial family evidently vexed the French pretender. He was, indeed, allowed to enter the room behind the imperial train; but he was not permitted to sit at the imperial table, being relegated to a distant and very modest seat. I was informed that, though the Emperor could, and did, have the prince to dine with him in private, he felt obliged, in view of the relations between Russia and the French Republic, to carefully avoid any special recognition of him in public. A far more brilliant visitor was the Ameer of Bokhara. I have already spoken of the way in which he was placed upon the throne by General Annenkof. He now came to visit the Czar as his suzerain, and with him came his eldest son and a number of his great men. The satrap himself was a singular combination of splendor and stoicism, wearing a gorgeous dress covered with enormous jewels, and observing the brilliant scenes about him with hardly ever a word. Even when he took his place at the table beside the Empress he was very uncommunicative. Facing the imperial table sat his great men; and their embarrassment was evident, one special source of it being clearly their small acquaintance with European table utensils. The Ameer brought to St. Petersburg splendid presents of gold and jewels, after the Oriental fashion, and also the heir to his throne, whom he left as a sort of hostage to be educated at the capital.