Prince Bezborodko was a man of high ability. He was employed in the reign of Catherine II. and of Paul, first as secretary to the cabinet, and then, in 1780, as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In his desire to avoid the countless appeals by which he was besieged, he made himself as inaccessible as possible. Women sometimes followed him into his carriage. He would answer their demands with "I shall forget," and if it was a case of a petition with "I shall lose it." His greatest gift was a thorough and exact knowledge of the Russian language. In addition to this he boasted a phenomenal memory and an astonishing facility of putting his thoughts into words. I give a well-known instance in proof thereof. On one occasion the Empress ordered him to draw up a ukase, which, however, a great pressure of business caused him to forget. The first time he saw the Empress again, after conferring with him on several matters of administration, she asked him for the ukase. Bezborodko, not the least bit in the world dismayed, drew a sheet of paper out of his portfolio, and without a moment's hesitation improvised the whole thing from beginning to end. Catherine was so well pleased with this presentment that she took the paper from him to look at it. Her surprise may be imagined at the sight of a sheet that was quite blank! Bezborodko began elaborate excuses, but she stopped him with compliments, and the next day made him Privy Councillor. Another Russian, whose memory was as marvellous as Prince Bezborodko's, was Count Buturlin, whom I knew quite well at Moscow, where, by the way, we lived so far apart that whenever I supped with Countess Buturlin I was obliged to go two miles. The Count, through his experience and his knowledge, is one of the most remarkable men I have ever known. He speaks all the languages with extraordinary ease, and his information on all sorts of subjects renders his conversation infinitely fascinating. But his superiority over others never prevented him from being very unaffected, nor from treating his friends with good-nature and generosity. He owned a huge library in Moscow, composed of the rarest and most valuable books in different languages. His memory was such that when he was recounting a historical or any other anecdote he could at once tell in what room and on what shelf of his library the book was that he had just cited. I was greatly amazed at this, yet a thing as fully astonishing was to hear him talk of all the towns of Europe and their most conspicuous features as if he had lived in them a long time, whereas he had never once set foot outside of Russia. For my part, I know that he spoke to me about Paris and its buildings, and everything curious to be seen there, in such complete detail that I exclaimed, "It is impossible that you have not been in Paris!"