Continuing his journey by carriage the next morning, Prince Charles reached Livadia at five in the afternoon after a long and fatiguing drive. The Czar received him with the greatest cordiality, and remarked at once that the courteous attitude of the Prince was enough to attract the animosity of the whole of Europe. The conversation then turned upon the affairs of Roumania, about which the Czar showed himself well informed on every point. Prince Charles was then presented to the Czarina, a cousin of his mother, to the Grand Duchess Marie, and later on to the Czarevitch and his wife, as well as to the Grand Duke Alexis. Unfortunately the tropical heat affected both the Czar and his guest to no slight degree, and the pleasure of the meeting was thus materially discounted. As early as August 22 Prince Charles was forced to bid his hospitable hosts good-bye, that he might attend the Roumanian manœuvres before his visit to his parents in Germany. The fears, which had been openly expressed, for the safety of Roumania during the Prince's absence proved to have been utterly unfounded, for, though the papers, the _Romanul_ and the _Trajan_, emulated each other in their attacks upon the dynasty, their revolutionary efforts met with no response at all, and it was therefore with a light heart that Prince Charles set out on September 7 to rejoin his dearly loved parents in South Germany. Before he quitted the territory of Roumania an amnesty was granted for all political and Press offences, in order to show the Prince's confidence that no intrigue was able to shake his hold upon the hearts of his people. The journey to the West, which was to exert so potent an influence on the Prince's life, was broken first at Vienna, where the Emperor of Austria had announced his intention of receiving the Roumanian Prince. For the first time since the war of 1866 the Emperor wore the ribbon of the Black Eagle, as a compliment to the house of Hohenzollern. Prince Charles seized the opportunity of assuring his Majesty that it would always be the policy of Roumania to stand on the best terms with Austria. Count Beust, who ventured to remark that the cost of the Roumanian Army was out of all proportion to its Budget, received the apt retort that the arsenals were unfortunately empty, a reference to the Count's statement that "Roumania was simply a large arsenal." The reception accorded to the Prince was so hearty that the Viennese Press expressed the opinion that Prince Charles would later on have to answer to the Porte for his assumption of sovereign bearing.