birth.

CHAPTER 17.

The Imperial Family.

I had at last the pleasure of seeing that monarch, equally absolute
by law and custom, and so moderate from his own disposition. The
empress Elizabeth, to whom I was at first presented, appeared to me
the tutelary angel of Russia. Her manners are extremely reserved,
but what she says is full of life, and it is from the focus of all
generous ideas that her sentiments and opinions have derived
strength and warmth. While I listened to her, I was affected by
something inexpressible, which did not proceed from her grandeur,
but from the harmony of her soul; so long was it since I had known
an instance of concord between power and virtue. As I was conversing
with the empress, the door opened, and the emperor Alexander did me
the honor to come and talk to me. What first struck me in him was
such an expression of goodness and dignity, that the two qualities
appear inseparable, and in him to form only one. I was also very
much affected with the noble simplicity with which he entered upon
the great interests of Europe, almost among the first words he
addressed to me. I have always regarded, as a proof of mediocrity,
that apprehension of treating serious questions, with which the best
part of the sovereigns of Europe have been inspired; they are afraid
to pronounce a word to which any real meaning can be attached. The
emperor Alexander on the contrary, conversed with me as statesmen in
England would have done, who place their strength in themselves, and
not in the barriers with which they are surrounded. The emperor
Alexander, whom Napoleon has endeavoured to misrepresent, is a man
of remarkable understanding and information, and I do not believe
that in the whole extent of his empire he could find a minister
better versed than himself in all that belongs to the judgment and
direction of public affairs. He did not disguise from me his regret
for the admiration to which he had surrendered himself in his
intercourse with Napoleon. His grandfather had, in the same way,
entertained a great enthusiasm for Frederic II. In these sort of
illusions, produced by an extraordinary character, there is always a
generous motive, whatever may be the errors that result from it. The
emperor Alexander, however, described with great sagacity the effect
produced upon him by these conversations with Bonaparte, in which he
said the most opposite things, as if one must be astonished at each,
withou