ins, the
Festetics, the Esterhazys, the Schoenbornes. Antique escutcheons were
hanging before the houses, and strange devices of the golden fleece,
and other crests and bearings were erected on the gables and roofs.
Vienna was emphatically the city of heraldry, and a tendency towards
Oriental taste in noble and burgher produced a fantastic architecture of
gables and minarets, breaking the massive lines of fortress-like
mediaeval palace and _hotel_. Here and there a carriage was standing in
the quiet street, and servants in gaudy liveries stood in the sunshine
about the steps and gates.

The next morning the Prince was seated at his toilette, in the hands of
his dresser, who was frizzling and powdering his hair. By his side was
standing his valet or body-servant, as he would be called in
England--_Chasseur_ or _Jager_, as he was called in North or South
Germany. This man was one of the most competent of his order, and
devoted to his master.

"Well, Karl," the Prince was saying, with his kindly air, "thou
breathest again here, I doubt not. This place is more to thy mind than
Joyeuse--_n'est ce pas_? There is life here and intrigue. It is better
even than Rome? Is it so?"

"Wherever the Serene Highness is," replied Karl graciously, "I am
content and happy. I was happy in Rome, in Joyeuse, at Wertheim; but I
confess that I like Wien. There is colour here, and quaintness, and
_esprit_."

Karl had picked up many art terms with the rest of the princely
household.

"Ah! Wertheim!" said the Prince, rather sadly as it seemed. "I like
Wertheim, ah! so much--for a day or two. One is so great a man there. I
know every one, and every one knows me. I feel almost like a beneficent
Providence, and as though I had discovered the perfection of art in
life. When I walk in the garden avenue after dinner, between the
statues, and every one has right of audience and petition, and one old
woman begs that her only son may be excused from military service, and
another that her stall in the market may not be taken away; and one old
man's house is burnt down, and he wants help to rebuild it, and another
craves right of wood-gathering in the princely forests, and another begs
that his son may be enrolled among the under-keepers and beaters of the
game, with right of snaring a hare,--and all these things are so easy to
grant, and seem to these poor folks so gracious, and like the gifts of
heaven, that one thinks for the moment that this must