was only happy when basking in the sunshine of royalty. That did not prevent him however from criticising the Court afterwards to Varnhagen, and repeating all sorts of discreditable stories about it. Varnhagen worked these up into books, which I also bought. They are fearfully dear when one thinks how few lines in large type go to the page.” Keudell observed that they were nevertheless indispensable for historical purposes. “Yes, in a certain sense,” replied the Chief. “Taken individually the stories are not worth much, but as a whole they are an expression of the sourness of Berlin at a period when nothing of importance was happening. At that time everybody talked in that maliciously impotent way. It was a society which it would be hardly possible to realise to-day without the assistance of such books, unless one had personal experience of it. A great deal of outward show with nothing genuine behind it. I remember, although I was a very little fellow at the time, it must have been in 1821 or ’22. Ministers were still like strange animals, regarded with wonder as something mysterious. There was once a large party, which was at that time called an _assemblée_, given at Schuckmann’s--what a monstrous huge beast he was as a Minister! My mother also went there. I remember it as if it were to-day. She wore long gloves that went up to here.” (He pointed to the upper part of his arm.) “A dress with a short waist, her hair puffed out on both sides, and a big ostrich feather on her head.” (The Chief left this anecdote unfinished, if indeed there was any conclusion to it, and returned to his former subject.) “Humboldt, however,” he continued, “had a great many interesting things to tell when one was alone with him, about the times of Frederick William III., and in particular about his own first sojourn in Paris. As he liked me, owing to the attention with which I listened to him, he told me a number of pretty anecdotes. It was the same with old Metternich, with whom I spent a few days at Johannisberg. Thun afterwards said to me, ‘I do not know how you have managed to get round the old Prince, but he has indeed looked into you as if you were a golden goblet, and he told me if you do not come to an understanding with him then I really don’t know what to say.’ ‘I can explain that to you,’ I replied. ‘I listened to all his stories, and often prompted him to continue them. That pleases the garrulous old people.’” Hatzfeldt said that Moltke had written to Trochu telling him how affairs stood at Orleans, and expressing his readiness to allow one of Trochu’s officers to satisfy himself of the truth of his statement. He would be furnished with a safe conduct to Orleans. The Chief said: “I know that. But he should not have done so. They ought to find that out for themselves. Our lines are now thin at various points, and they have also a pigeon post. They will only imagine we are in a hurry to get them to capitulate.”