left them, fall
heavy in a thousand ways upon their subjects!

CHAPTER 8.

Departure from Vienna.

Obliged to make my election, I decided at last for Gallicia, which
would conduct me to the country I preferred, namely, to Russia. I
flattered myself, that once at a distance from Vienna, all these
vexations, excited no doubt by the French government, would cease;
and that at all events, I might, if it was necessary, quit Gallicia,
and regain Bucharest by Transylvania. The geography of Europe, such
as Napoleon has constituted it, is but too well learned by
misfortune; the turnings which I was obliged to take to avoid his
power were already near two thousand leagues; and now at my
departure even from Vienna I was constrained to borrow the Asiatic
territory to escape from it. I departed, therefore, without having
received my Russian passport, hoping thereby to quiet the uneasiness
which the subaltern police of Vienna appeared to feel about the
presence of a female who was in disgrace with the emperor Napoleon.
I requested one of my friends to rejoin me, by travelling night and
day, as soon as the answer from Russia arrived, and I proceeded on
my road. I did very wrong in taking this step, for at Vienna I was
protected by my friends and by public opinion; I could there easily
address myself to the emperor or to his prime minister: but once
confined to a provincial town, I had only to do with the stupid
wickedness of a subaltern, who wished to make a merit with the
French government, of his conduct towards me; this was the method he
took.

I stopped for some days at Brunn, the capital of Moravia, where an
English colonel, a Mr. Mills, was detained in exile; he was a man of
the most perfect goodness and obliging manners, and according to the
English expression, altogether inoffensive. He was made dreadfully
miserable, without the least pretence or utility. But the Austrian
ministry is apparently persuaded that it will derive an air of
strength from turning persecutor; its counsellors are not mistaken;
and as was said by a man of wit, their manner of governing in
matters of police, resembles the sentinels placed upon the half
destroyed citadel of Brunn,--they keep a strict guard round the
ruins. Scarcely had I arrived at Brunn when all sorts of
difficulties were started about my passports, and those of my
companions. I asked permission to send my son to Vienna, to give the
necessary explanations upon these points.