influence; his Ministers and Ambassadors were clerks; and while his ease and affability to foreigners (to him--Esterhazy--in particular) were excessively striking, he treated his Russians with a loftiness that could not be conceived, and one and all trembled in his presence with the crouching humility of slaves. When he was at Prague he on a sudden set off and travelled with amazing rapidity to Vienna, without giving any notice to anybody. His object was to visit the Dowager Empress and the tomb of the late Emperor. He alighted at Tatischef's (his Ambassador's), where, as soon as his arrival was known, the Russian ladies who were at Vienna full-dressed themselves and hurried off to pay their _devoirs_. They were met in all their diamonds and feathers on the staircase by Benkendorf, who said, 'Allez-vous en bien vite; l'Empereur ne veut pas voir une seule de vous,' and they were obliged to bustle back with as much alacrity as they had come. Though the best understanding prevailed between the French and Austrian Governments, and the latter is cordially allied with Louis Philippe, there is some sourness and disappointment at the failure of the project of marriage with which the Duke of Orleans went to Vienna. Esterhazy said that it had failed in great measure through an imprudent precipitation; that the Duke had given universal satisfaction, but there were great prejudices to surmount, and the recollection of Marie Antoinette and Marie Louise. He thought the advantages of the match were overrated at Paris, but they were so anxious for it there that the disappointment was considerable; he said he thought that it might still be brought about. These are the few fragments I have retained from the talk we had. November 13th, 1836 {p.372} [Page Head: GLOOMY PROSPECTS.]