How many ambitions were stirring among the actors at Verona! How many destinies of nations were examined, discussed and weighed! Let us call the roll of those wooers of dreams; let us open the book of the Day of Wrath: _Liber scriptus proferetur_[66]; monarchs, princes, ministers, here is your ambassador, your colleague returned to his post: where are you? Answer. The Emperor of Russia, Alexander? "Dead." The Emperor of Austria, Francis I.[67]? "Dead." The King of France, Louis XVIII.? "Dead." The King of France, Charles X.[68]? "Dead." The King of England, George IV.? "Dead." The King of Naples, Ferdinand I.? "Dead." The Duke of Tuscany[69]? "Dead." Pope Pius VII.? "Dead." The King of Sardinia, Charles Felix[70]? "Dead." The Duc de Montmorency, French Foreign Minister? "Dead." Mr. Canning, English Foreign Minister? "Dead." M. de Bernstorff, Prussian Foreign Minister? "Dead." M. de Gentz, of the Austrian Chancery? "Dead." Cardinal Consalvi, Secretary of State to His Holiness? "Dead." M. de Serre, my colleague on the Congress[71]? "Dead." M. d'Aspremont, my secretary of embassy? "Dead." Count Neipperg, the husband of Napoleon's widow? "Dead." Countess Tolstoi? "Dead." Her tall young son? "Dead." My host in the Lorenzi Palace? "Dead." If so many men inscribed with me on the roll of the Congress have had their names inserted in the obituary; if nations and royal dynasties have perished; if Poland has succumbed; if Spain is again annihilated; if I have been to Prague to enquire after the flying remnants of the great House whose representative I was at Verona: what, then, are earthly things? No one remembers the speeches which we made round the table of Prince Metternich; but, O power of genius, no traveller will ever hear the lark sing in the fields of Verona without recalling Shakespeare! Each of us, by digging to different depths in his memory, finds another layer of dead, other extinct sentiments, other illusions which uselessly he suckled, like those of Herculaneum, at the breast of Hope. On leaving Verona, I was obliged to change my measure to compute the time that was past; I was going back twenty-seven years, for I had not made the journey from Verona to Venice since 1806. At Brescia, at Vicenza, at Padua, I passed by the walls of Palladio, Scamozzi[72], Franceschini, Nicholas of Pisa[73], Friar John.