The Countess de Lieven had had some rather ridiculous affairs with Madame d'Osmond[176] and George IV. As she was audacious and was considered to be in favour at Court, she had become extremely fashionable. She was thought to have wit, because her husband was supposed to have none, which was not true: M. de Lieven[177] was much superior to Madame. Madame de Lieven, with sharp and unprepossessing features, is a commonplace, wearisome, arid woman, who has only one style of conversation: vulgar politics; for the rest, she knows nothing and she hides the dearth of her ideas under the abundance of her words. When she finds herself with people of merit, her sterility is silent; she invests her nullity with a superior air of boredom, as though she had the right to be bored; having fallen through the effect of time, and being unable to keep from meddling with something, the dowager of the Congress has come from Verona to give, in Paris[178], with the permission of the magistrates of St. Petersburg, a representation of the diplomatic puerilities of former days. She keeps up private correspondences and has shown herself a specialist in unhappy marriages. Our novices have rushed to her rooms to learn to know the fine world and the art of secrets; they entrust her with theirs, which, spread abroad by Madame de Lieven, change into underhand tittle-tattle. The ministers, and those who aspire to become so, are quite proud to be protected by a lady who has had the honour to see M. de Metternich at the hours in which the great man, to refresh himself after the weight of business, amused himself by unravelling silk. Ridicule awaited Madame de Lieven in Paris. A serious doctrinaire[179] has fallen at Omphale's feet: "Love, 'twas thou lost Troy."