Europe had received a vehement impulse from the French revolution. The Grand Duke, who was himself threatened by the spirit of revolt, must have viewed with but little satisfaction this popular explosion at the other extremity of Europe; but the distance of Russia, her financial embarrassments, and the accomplishment of the partition of Poland, did not permit her to take part in the first coalition against the French revolution: the Russians did not join the hostile party until the second Italian war, during the campaign of Suwarof. I will not repeat the well-known military story; the divisions in the cabinets of Vienna and St. Petersburg put a stop to the second coalition: but the Russian regiments had seen Italy; they had touched the soil of Switzerland; for the first time their breasts had been warmed by the mild rays of the southern sun; and, like the invaders of the third and fourth centuries, they recollected during the long wintry nights of their icy clime, that there were large towns and fair cities in the south of Europe, that those fertile lands produced delicious fruits, while the smiling plains were crowned with abundant harvests: these recollections lay deep in the mind of many a Russian veteran in the years 1813 and 1814, and from this time forth the cabinet of St. Petersburg took a part in the interests of southern Europe. The diplomatic career of Count Nesselrode began at the time of the embassy of Count Marcoff at Paris, under the Consulate--that wonderful period when every thing, government, institutions, and political and social ideas, appeared to have been renewed with the vigour of youth. The forcible administration of the First Consul easily opened the way to negotiations with Russia, for whenever a regular power has been established in France, Europe has never attempted to overturn it. Count Nesselrode being attached to the embassy in Paris, had the opportunity of witnessing the magnificent developement of the power and genius of Buonaparte, then First Consul. Who would have foretold that fifteen years later, he, as the Chancellor of Alexander, would preside over the acts relative to the downfall of the Emperor, and sanction the decrees of the senate of 1814 for the restoration of the House of Bourbon?