Their life in the capital was full of interest to Clémence and Ivan. The best and most brilliant society received them with open arms. Ivan’s comrades in the late war gathered round him, and many were their pleasant social meetings. Clémence was soon presented at Court, and won the marked approval of the dignified Empress Mother, and--what she prized much more highly--the favour of the gentle Empress Elizabeth. Both the Empresses found their chief enjoyment in assisting the Emperor in his works of mercy. The more active disposition of the elder led her to take delight in the management of the great Foundling Hospital (her especial favourite); also in the establishment for the education of young ladies; in the School for the Deaf and Dumb, where the methods of the Abbé Sicard were being carried out with diligence and success; and in many other institutions, which were either founded or fostered by the benevolence of Alexander. When the Winter Palace set the example, it was no marvel that charity became the fashion in St. Petersburg. Not from fashion, but from a far higher motive, Clémence and Ivan engaged heartily in such pursuits, spending much of their leisure and their substance in the work of serving “Christ in his poor.” There were at this time in the best society of St. Petersburg two distinct religious circles, differing widely, and each in its own way very influential. At the Sardinian Embassy, the “old man eloquent,” Count de Maistre,--with his white hair and eyes of fire, his “esprit fin” indescribable in English, his keen, quick sympathies, and his brave, high, chivalrous spirit,--strove hard to turn the stream of religious thought into a strong and steady current leading Romewards. He was worthy to have been the champion of a better cause; but he and those like him never really knew for what they were contending. They were as loyal-hearted soldiers who fight and die heroically beneath the banner of a usurper, honestly believing they are serving their true king. Madame Svetchine, Countess Tolstoi, and other devout women, were just then yielding to the fascination of De Maistre’s eloquence; and a colony of Jesuits, zealous, active, and not over-scrupulous, were furthering the work of proselytism after their peculiar fashion.