nd-bags,"
"Pea-soup," "Die Perrueckirte Haeupter;" Maria Theresa becomes "Maman;"
Gustavus of Sweden, "Falstaff;" and so on. There is no question here of
making a figure; often she has nothing to say; she writes purely to give
extravagance an outlet. We have her here as though we had been present
at one of those sparkling conversations which, in old days, used to send
Grimm sleepless to his rooms, but of which nothing remained memorable,
which in truth charmed by their vivacity rather than by wit--by that
_verve_ which so often supplies the place of brilliancy. This familiar
note will appear again in her letters to the Emperor Joseph; as unlike
those addressed to Herod as the letters to Grimm are unlike those to
Madame Geoffrin or Voltaire. He was also _des notres_. She, who judged
men in general poorly enough, though she used them incomparably well,
not only recognized--unlike most of his contemporaries--but was
fascinated by the elements of greatness in that extraordinary man. She
used him, it is true, as she used Orloff and Patiomkin; her good-fortune
helped her as it did before, and will again; their great alliance
against the Ottoman brought her everything, and him nothing. Still, no
foreigner ever dazzled her as he, who could so little impose himself on
his age. "He will live unrivalled," she wrote in her enthusiasm; "his
star is in the ascendant, he will leave all Europe behind!" A wandering
star, alas! He will go before her to the grave, the great failure of his
generation, in the bitterness of death dictating that saddest of
epitaphs, "Here lies one who never fulfilled an aim." _Impar
congressus!_ like Michelet's Charles the Bold, "_il avait trop voulu,
des choses infinies_."

The arts were indifferent to her, and she was insensible to the
simplicity of true greatness. She idolized a Zuboff, but Kosciuszko was
immured at St. Petersburg till the day of her death, and she never even
learned his precise name. Yet she brought to society and politics much
of that protean activity which was the distinction of her teacher
Voltaire in the field of letters. She did much for education, and
something for Russian literature. She herself wrote or collaborated in
plays, whose performances the Holy Synod had to attend--and applaud--in
a body. She also published translations, pamphlets, books for her
grandchildren, a history of Russia to the fourteenth century, and even
helped to edit a newspaper. Unlike Frederick, she did not