ominent part in the gaieties of the capital.
Just now I was on cordial, if not exactly intimate, terms with the
Princess. She appeared to have resigned herself to Hammerfeldt's
preponderating influence in political affairs, and to accept in
compensation the office of mentor and guide in all social matters. I was
happy in the establishment of a _modus vivendi_ which left me tolerably
free from the harassing trifles of ceremonial and etiquette. To
Hammerfeldt's instructions I listened with avidity and showed a
deference which did not forbid secret criticism. He worked me hard; the
truth is (and it was not then hidden either from him or from me) that
his strength was failing; age had not bent, but it threatened to break
him; the time was short in which he could hope to be by my side, binding
his principles and rivetting his methods on me. He was too shrewd not to
detect in me a curiosity of intellect that only the strongest and
deepest prepossessions could restrain; these it was his untiring effort
to create in my mind and to buttress till they were impregnable. To some
extent he attained his object, but his success was limited; and his
teaching affected by what I can only call a modernness of temperament in
me, which no force of tradition wholly destroyed or stifled. That many
things must be treated as beyond question was the fruit of his maxims;
it is a position which I have never been able to adopt; with me the acid
of doubt bit into every axiom. I took pleasure in the society and
arguments of the liberal politicians and journalists who began to
frequent the court as soon as a rumour of my inclinations spread. I
became the centre and object of a contention between the Right and the
Left, between Conservative and Liberal forces--or, if I apply to each
party the nickname accorded to it by the enemy, between the Reaction and
the Revolution.

Doubtless all this will find an accomplished, and possibly an impartial,
historian. Its significance for these personal memoirs is due chiefly to
the accidental fact that, whereas my mother was the social centre of the
orthodox party and in that capacity gave solid aid to Hammerfeldt, the
unorthodox gathered round the Countess von Sempach. Her husband was
considered no more than a good soldier, a man of high rank, and a
devoted husband; by her own talents and charm this remarkable woman,
although a foreigner, had achieved for herself a position of great
influence. She renewed the glori