Three years thus happily spent, in 1842, Count Rossi obtained leave of absence to visit his family, then residing at Vienna, and the Countess accompanied her husband. Those who visited Vienna before the late revolution, cannot forget the state of society which prevailed in the Austrian capital, the chief abode of taste and pleasure in that quarter of the globe. The circles of society were defined as rigorously and irrevocably as the boundaries of the little principalities on a German map, and with this difference that there was no debatable land. Amidst the nobility itself resident at Vienna, there was an exclusive circle formed, whose exclusiveness was two-fold, being in the ratio not only of rank, but of fashion. This circle, consisting of those who were once the great feudal lords of the overgrown empire, of the mediatized princes, of the nobles who had the highest rank and the greatest power, with a sprinkling of those who had the greatest talent to amuse society--there was formed a _creme de la creme_--a social oligarchy of exclusiveness, without example in any other capital. Over this Olympus of gods and demi-gods, the Prince Metternich, the greatest diplomatist of the age of Napoleon, and a functionary with all the reality, although without the title of imperial rule, together with his handsome and witty consort, ruled supreme. The frost-work, which excluded so many persons of the highest pretensions, whether travellers or residents, at once dissolved under the gentle influence of Madame de Rossi, as soon as she arrived in Vienna. In the sanctuary of princes and princesses, in the innermost _penetralia_ of the most mysterious rites of fashion, Madame de Rossi spent the time of her short residence in Vienna, delighting those assemblies she visited by occasional snatches of song, and giving _matinees musicales_ with amateurs, which were thronged by the highest personages. By her amiability, her talents, and virtues, she laid at Vienna the foundation of more than one enduring friendship. Prussia having become the _punctum saliens_ of diplomacy in the Northern world, the Sardinian Cabinet removed Count Rossi, as its representative, to Berlin, in 1843. At this _dilettante_ Court, where she was considered in the light of a countrywoman, and one of the boasts of the "Faderland," and in that capital, where, a few years before, she had exacted so often unbounded enthusiasm, Madame de Rossi was received with the warmest welcome. The Berlinese contemplated her noble bearing in her new position with the deepest interest.