The table was laid in the first of the two back rooms. When I entered only the Princess, Countess Marie, Count Bill, and a lady with a Polish name were present. The Russian General Erkert came afterwards. The Princess, noticing my white necktie, exclaimed, “Herr Doctor, how smart you have made yourself!” I do not remember what I said in reply, as I suddenly became conscious of my sin and felt somewhat out of countenance. Luckily the Prince soon appeared, and we went to table, the general taking in the lady of the house, while I had the honour to give my arm to the daughter. A beautiful silver vase set with old and new silver coins stood in the centre of the round table. I sat between the Princess and the Countess, the Russian being on the other side of the Princess, while the Prince sat opposite me. Then came the dainty little Polish lady and Count Bill, next his sister. We drank Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhine wine, champagne, beer, and finally chartreuse, which the Prince praised as being very wholesome. The conversation was lively and unconstrained. The general related some pretty stories of the simplicity of the Russian soldiers. The subject of the last war then came up, and I reminded the Chancellor of Herny, where he was quartered in the garret of a farmhouse; of Clermont, where in the absence of a bedstead he was obliged to sleep on the floor; of Madame Jesse’s house, the goblin clock and the historical table. He related a number of anecdotes on the same subject, among other things his interview with madame, and the way in which Hatzfeldt had “rescued” the table, replacing it by one exactly similar. The Prince then turned the conversation upon Kings and Princes, and the way in which they regarded the world. “They live above the clouds,” I said. “How do you mean?” he asked. “Above the cloud of courtiers and other menials,” I replied, “separated by them from the ideas and feelings of other mortals, whose wishes and opinions only reach them in a mutilated or adapted form, and sometimes not at all.” “The comparison is a good one,” said the Prince. “Gods, and yet very human. They ought to be better educated, so that they should know how things look here below, how they really are. Not appearances, but truth. The great Kings have always clung to truth, and yet have suffered no loss of dignity.”