court
and country like an incubus.

But it is probable that he preserves softer gifts for necessary
purposes. Indeed, it is certain, although he vouchsafed none of it to
me, that this cold and stolid politician possesses to a great degree the
art of ingratiation, and can be all things to all men. Hence there has
probably sprung up the idle legend that in private life he is a gross
romping voluptuary. Nothing, at least, can well be more surprising than
the terms of his connection with the Princess. Older than her husband,
certainly uglier, and, according to the feeble ideas common among women,
in every particular less pleasing, he has not only seized the complete
command of all her thought and action, but has imposed on her in public
a humiliating part. I do not here refer to the complete sacrifice of
every rag of her reputation; for to many women these extremities are in
themselves attractive. But there is about the court a certain lady of a
dishevelled reputation, a Countess von Rosen, wife or widow of a cloudy
count, no longer in her second youth, and already bereft of some of her
attractions, who unequivocally occupies the station of the Baron's
mistress. I had thought, at first, that she was but a hired accomplice,
a mere blind or buffer for the more important sinner. A few hours'
acquaintance with Madame von Rosen for ever dispelled the illusion. She
is one rather to make than to prevent a scandal, and she values none of
those bribes--money, honours, or employment--with which the situation
might be gilded. Indeed, as a person frankly bad, she pleased me, in the
court of Gruenewald, like a piece of nature.

The power of this man over the Princess is, therefore, without bounds.
She has sacrificed to the adoration with which he has inspired her not
only her marriage vow and every shred of public decency, but that vice
of jealousy which is so much dearer to the female sex than either
intrinsic honour or outward consideration. Nay, more: a young, although
not a very attractive woman, and a princess both by birth and fact, she
submits to the triumphant rivalry of one who might be her mother as to
years, and who is so manifestly her inferior in station. This is one of
the mysteries of the human heart. But the rage of illicit love, when it
is once indulged, appears to grow by feeding; and to a person of the
character and temperament of this unfortunate young lady, almost any
depth of degradation is within the reach of po