This took place in 1764, or about the period of the Polish throne being vacant. Von der Osten had received orders to make common cause with the dissidents, who desired the election of Stanislaus; but he was of a different opinion, and worked against his old friend in favour of a Count Oginsky, who was younger and handsomer, and whom he tried to please by dyeing his red eyebrows black. This attachment so blinded him, that, in the ante-chamber of the empress, and at the time when he was in favour, he offered to bet on the election of Oginsky against that of Stanislaus. Oginsky paid him for such warm protection, and I have no doubt gave but slight attention to the colour of his eyebrows. The publicity which the Russian court gave to Osten's disgrace refers to some secret infamy, and not to the two Polish rivals. It is supposed that, having succeeded in attaining a position by the help of Madame Bestucheff, who was a Dane, he eventually committed some signal act of treachery against her husband. It must have been during the period of his favour at Petersburg that Osten obtained the title of Count, for he was not so by birth. At the same period he asked for the order of the Dannebrog, but Bernstorff answered him that he had been a page too recently; and for this refusal Von der Osten never forgave the Danish minister. After so many causes of bitterness, old and new, Bernstorff, not wishing to avenge himself by disgracing Osten, or recall to court an enemy whose talent for intrigue had become notorious, sent the count to Naples. After awhile, as the count did not cease to complain of an employment which he regarded as an exile, the minister had the complaisance to nominate him for Paris _vice_ Von Gleichen; but at the first hint the French court received of this, it ordered the Marquis de Blosset to protest at Copenhagen against this choice. Then Bernstorff destined him for the Hague; but, his own power ceasing shortly after, he saw himself succeeded by the man whose friendship he had only been able to gain by such indulgence and kindness.