After a sojourn at Vienna of two years and a half, I left that place in April of the year 1795 for Prague. I then passed on to Budweis, whose surroundings are most engaging. The town is deserted, the fortifications are in ruins; there are only old men and some women and children to be met with--and not many of those. Finally we reached Dresden by a very narrow road skirting the Elbe at a great height, the river flowing through a broad valley. The very day after my arrival I visited the famous Dresden gallery, unexcelled in the world. Its masterpieces are so well known that I render no special account. I will only observe that here, as everywhere else, one recognises how far Raphael stands above all other painters. I had inspected several rooms of the gallery, when I found myself before a picture which filled me with an admiration greater than anything else in the art of painting could have evoked. It represents the Virgin, standing on some clouds and holding the infant Jesus in her arms. This figure is of a beauty and a nobility worthy of the divine brush that traced it; the face of the child bears an expression at once innocent and heavenly; the draperies are most accurately drawn, and their colouring is exquisite. At the right of the Virgin is a saint done with admirable fidelity to life, his two hands being especially to be noted. At the left is a young saint, with head inclined, looking at two angels at the bottom of the picture. Her face is all loveliness, truth and modesty. The two little angels are leaning on their hands, their eyes raised to the persons above them, and their heads are done with an ingenuity and a delicacy not to be conveyed in words. Being in great haste to get to St. Petersburg, I went from Dresden to Berlin, where I only remained five days, my project being to return thither and make a longer stay on my way back from Russia, for the purpose of seeing Prussia's charming Queen. CHAPTER VII SAINT PETERSBURG ARRIVAL AT ST. PETERSBURG -- THE BEAUTIFUL GRANDDUCHESS ELISABETH -- CATHERINE II. RECEIVES MME. LEBRUN -- AND IS MOST GRACIOUS -- PETTY COURT INTRIGUES -- A VISIT TO COUNT STROGONOFF -- HOSPITALITY OF THE RUSSIANS -- AN AMBASSADOR AS GARDENER -- PRINCESS DOLGORUKI AND HER HIDEOUS ADMIRER -- THE EXTRAVAGANCES OF POTEMKIN -- HIS END. I entered St. Petersburg on the 25th of July, 1795, by the road from Peterhoff, which gave me a favourable idea of the city, for this road is lined on both sides by delightful country houses, with gardens of the best taste in the English style. Their residents have taken advantage of the soil, which is very marshy, to adorn the gardens--where there are kiosks and pretty bridges--by canals and little streams. But it is a pity that a dreadful dampness spoils this pleasant scene of an evening; even before sunset such a fog rises over the road that one seems to be enveloped in thick, dark smoke.