The Baron, who had excellent taste in everything except his own make-up, superintended all the details of the affair, even to the costumes of the bridal party. The bridesmaids were schoolmates of Miss Williams, one being Jessie Benton, then aged fourteen, who afterward became the wife of General John C. Fremont. The groomsmen were generally contemporaries of the groom, so that the note of age disparity was uniform throughout. President Van Buren and Henry Clay were conspicuous among the guests. At the first opportunity, the Baron took his bride to Russia and presented her at court, where she electrified the assembled nobility by shaking the Czar’s hand in cordial American fashion. It delighted the Czar, however, which was more to the point; and, although she did many unusual things, like declining the Czarina’s invitation to a Sunday function because she had been brought up to “keep the Sabbath,” she became a great favorite in the inner imperial circle, and loved to dwell on her foreign experiences after she came back to Georgetown to live. The Bodisco house is still pointed out to strangers. Not all the historic associations of Georgetown and its neighborhood have been so peaceful. For a few miles out of town the river’s edge is dotted with sequestered nooks to which hot-brained gentlemen could retire on occasion, to wipe out their grievances in one another’s blood. The Little Falls bridge afforded such a retreat to Henry Clay and John Randolph after Randolph’s speech declaring that the “alphabet that writes the name of Thersites, of blackguard, of squalidity, refuses her letters for” Clay. The combatants took the precaution to cross the bridge far enough to avoid the jurisdiction of the District authorities. Clay’s first shot cut Randolph’s coat near the hip, Randolph’s did nothing. At the second word, Clay’s bullet went wild, and Randolph deliberately sent his into the air, remarking: “I do not fire at you, Mr. Clay!” At the same time he advanced with hand outstretched, Clay meeting him halfway. Randolph, as they were leaving the field, pointed to the hole made by Clay’s first bullet, saying jocosely: “You owe me a coat, Mr. Clay.” “I am glad, sir,” answered Clay, “that the debt is no greater.” The subject of duels calls to mind another suburb, to wit, Bladensburg, Maryland, where the defenders of Washington made their brief and ineffectual stand against the invading British in 1814. Here, for sixty years, in a green little dell about a mile out of town, all sorts of personal and political feuds were settled with deadly weapons. The most celebrated of these meetings was that of March 22, 1820, between two Commodores of the American navy, Stephen Decatur and James Barren. Like most duels, it was more the work of mischief-makers than of the principals themselves.