ormidable in a fight, so gentle and modest in a _salon_.

I also made frequent visits at the house of the Countess de Rombec,
sister of Count Cobentzel. The Countess de Rombec gathered about her
the most distinguished society of Vienna. It was under her roof that I
saw Prince Metternich and his son, who has since become prime
minister, and who was then nothing but a very handsome young man. I
there met again the amiable Prince de Ligne; he told us about the
delightful journey he had made in the Crimea with the Empress
Catherine II., and inspired me with a wish to see that great ruler. In
the same house I encountered the Duchess de Guiche, whose lovely face
had not changed in the least. Her mother, the Duchess de Polignac,
lived permanently at a place near Vienna. It was there that she heard
of the death of Louis XVI., which affected her health very seriously,
but when she heard the dreadful news of the Queen's death she
succumbed altogether. Her grief changed her to such an extent that her
pretty face became unrecognisable, and every one foresaw that she had
not much longer to live. She did, in fact, die in a little while,
leaving her family and some friends who would not leave her
disconsolate at their loss.

I can judge how terrible that which had happened in France must have
been to her by the sorrow I experienced myself. I learned nothing from
the newspapers, for I had read them no more since the day when, having
opened one at Mme. de Rombec's, I had found the names of nine persons
of my acquaintance who had been guillotined. People even took care to
hide all political pamphlets from me. I thus heard of the horrible
occurrence through my brother, who wrote it down and sent the letter
without giving any further particulars whatever. His heart broken, he
simply wrote that Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had perished on the
scaffold. Afterward, from compassion toward myself, I always abstained
from putting the least question concerning what accompanied or
preceded that awful murder, so that I should have known nothing about
it to this very day had it not been for a certain fact to which I may
possibly refer in the future.

As soon as spring came I took a little house in a village near Vienna
and went to settle there. This village, called Huitzing, was adjacent
to the park of Schoenbrunn. I took with me to Huitzing the large
portrait I was then doing of the Princess Lichtenstein, to finish it.
This young Princess was