In the year 1769 Caroline—afterwards Frau Pichler—was born. In the meantime the Empress had by no means relaxed her friendship for her mother. The von Greiners were not “hoffähig,” they could not go to court officially, but Frau von Greiner constantly visited her old mistress privately, and Von Greiner himself had, as I have said, won the great lady’s favour, and she not only kept him in her eye for advancement, but frequently sent for him and sought his advice. With a salary of four thousand gulden—two hundred pounds, I suppose—and a spacious official residence, the family was well able to maintain a good appearance, and Herr von Greiner’s exceptional attainments and artistic gifts as pastelist and poet made the house a trysting-place for all that was most notable in literature and music—especially music; for at Frau von Greiner’s weekly assemblies were frequently seen and heard Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Paesiello and Cimarosa. Painters and sculptors, poets and authors less known to fame than those great musicians, were welcome visitors, and the _salon_ became so popular that even a sprig of nobility—the condescension duly acknowledged—might now and then be found there. It is curious to see what a hard and fast line Vienna drew (and, to a certain extent, still draws) between the upper middle-class and the aristocracy—a line as deferentially recognized on the one side as it was haughtily imposed on the other. We know how to this day, in an Austrian ballroom, “die kleinen Komtessen” look with supercilious eyes upon any would-be partner who may be introduced to them unless his quarterings are fully satisfactory. The favour in which Frau von Greiner was held in high quarters had no doubt some effect in bridging over the gulf which was fixed between the noblesse and the bourgeoisie. But I have been straying far away from the goal which I set before me. It would be fascinating to follow Frau Pichler’s story, for it is the story of a woman who lived through stirring times, who was present during the three attacks upon Vienna, who tells us the one story of courteous chivalry of the young Napoleon; who heard Haydn, Weber, Mozart, Beethoven play their own compositions, and, living on till near the middle of the last century, could compare their execution with that of Liszt and Thalberg. She knew and rather disliked Madame de Staël, despising her for tricking out the charms of a woman “fair, fat and forty” in a too youthful attire; but was charmed by the music of a speaking voice, her description of which reminds us of Sarah Bernhardt. She corresponded at least once with Goethe, and was snubbed by the Humboldts, which rankled not a little. But all this is beside the mark. I am only concerned to show how to the end the lives of the two great Queen-Empresses followed similar lines.