The scene that ensued was curious, touching, and rapid. The Czarina burst into tears, kissed the wondering child with a fiery and uncontrollable emotion, and gazed upon her with an almost frantic look of mingled love, jealousy, and despair. The Baron slightly coughed, the Czarina re-entered the _salon_, and the spectators appeared unconscious of anything but the imperial presence, and the reverence due to it. Lady Castlereagh alone heard her say to the Baron, as she passed. “Thanks for your courtesy, Monsieur le Baron. Tell her mother I envy and forgive her!” “Who is her mother?” asked Lady Castlereagh. “Madame Krudener, the mistress of Alexander, the pious Czar. The Czarina has just kissed her rival’s child, and her heart is breaking that she is not the mother of it.” The night that succeeded was a brilliant one at the imperial palace of Austria. In a small room adjoining the great gallery was assembled a strange group. A very handsome young man, in the costume and with the attributes of Jupiter, was walking to and fro, eating a slice of pine-apple, and declaring that the Count de Wurbna was mad. A somewhat older but a fine-looking personage, easily recognizable as Mars, was lying recumbent on a sofa, repeating the declaration that De Wurbna was mad. These two theatrical deities were, in their mortal positions, no other than Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and the Count de Zichy. De Wurbna was seated on a stool, bending forward to fasten his sandal. His dress, his lyre, and his insignia told at once that he was Phœbus Apollo. There was nothing like insanity about him; but when he raised his head, the beholder was constrained to confess that there _was_ something about him very unlike the lover of Daphne and Coronis. In fact, he wore a very formidable pair of mustachios. However appropriate this adornment might be to the Apollo Corybassides, who disputed the dominion of Crete with Jupiter himself, it little suited the fair son of Latona, the only one of all the gods whose oracles were in general repute throughout the world. Be this as it may, the Viennese Apollo, whose transcendent beauty had designated him as the only man who could fittingly represent the graceful god, strictly refused to sacrifice his cherished moustache. Madame de Wilhelm, the destined Venus of the _tableaux vivans_ about to be represented, had suggested that his head should be turned from the spectators; but the proud Minerva of the night, the Countess Rosalie Rzewouska (the original of M. Sue’s Fleur de Marie), declared that the suggestion lacked wisdom, and that, if adopted, Miss Smith, the daughter of the Admiral Sir Sidney, would spoil her Juno, and laugh outright, as she did at everything. “I thought Thierry could do anything,” said Jupiter. “He has superintended the getting up of all our costumes; and he engaged, a fortnight ago, to render De Wurbna reasonable.”