Julie Barbe (Juliane Barbara) de Vietinghof was born in 1764 at Riga, in Livonia. Her education was conducted half on French, half on German lines. Her father was a distinguished, sagacious man of the world, a philosopher and Freemason, an art-lover and a Mæcenas; her mother, a sensible, conscientious woman, had been brought up on strict, old-fashioned Lutheran principles. Both parents belonged to the highest class of the old German-Russian aristocracy of the Baltic Provinces, and were connected with the Russian court. The first teacher who made a real impression upon their young daughter, and whose instructions powerfully influenced her future, was the famous Parisian ballet-dancer, Vestris. At the age of eighteen Julie married Baron de Krüdener, a Russian diplomatist, a man fifteen years her senior, who had already been married twice, and had been divorced from both his wives. Her heart had no share in this union; the match was considered an excellent one, her vanity was gratified, and she had no manner of objection to her husband. He seems to have been a sensible, worthy, well-educated man, cultivated and calm, by no means devoid of feeling, but both by nature and from his position wedded to all the conventions of society. The Graces had not stood by his cradle. It was into the most brilliant society of the eighteenth century that Baron de Krüdener introduced his wife. At the time of his marriage he was Russian envoy in Kurland, and immediately after the honeymoon the couple proceeded to Mitau, where Krüdener negotiated the incorporation of the Duchy with Russia, and where they were honoured with a visit from the Czar (Paul I.). Amateur theatricals provided the young wife with her chief occupation and interest. She went on acting until almost immediately before the birth of her only son. A few weeks after this event the young mother was presented to the Empress Catherine at St. Petersburg. Thence Krüdener was sent as Russian ambassador to Venice; the most dissipated town of the day, where his wife lived in a whirl of gaiety.