graciosities, disregarding the pain of his foot; and did not,
till refusal threatened to become uncivil, comply with her Majesty's
entreaties. "How unpolite!" smiled he to us young ones. "He had a
majestic port and physiognomy; an affable polite air accompanied all
his movements, all his actions." Kind of stereotyped smile on his face;
nothing of the inner gloom visible on our Charles II. and similar men
of sin. He looked often at Wilhelmina, and was complimentary to a
degree,--for reasons undivinable to Wilhelmina. For the rest, "much
broken for his age;" the terrible debaucheries (LES DEBAUCHES TERRIBLES)
having had their effect on him. He has fallen Widower last year. His
poor Wife was a Brandenburg-Baireuth Princess; a devout kind of woman;
austerely witnessing the irremediable in her lot. He has got far on with
his three hundred and fifty-four; is now going fifty-five;--lame of a
foot, as we see, which the great Petit of Paris cannot cure, neither he
nor any Surgeon, but can only alleviate by cutting off two toes. Pink of
politeness, no doubt of it; but otherwise the strangest dilapidated hulk
of a two-legged animal without feathers; probably, in fact, the chief
Natural Solecism under the Sun at that epoch;--extremely complimentary
to us Princesses, to me especially. "He quitted her Majesty's Apartment
after an hour's conversation: she rose to reconduct him, but he would by
no manner of means permit that,"--and so vanished, carried off doubtless
by the shining creatures again. The "Electoral Prince" Heir-Apparent,
next made his visit; but he was a dry subject in comparison, of whom no
Princess can say much. Prince Friedrich will know him better by and by.

Young Maurice, "Count of Saxony," famed afterwards as MARECHAL DE SAXE,
he also is here with his Half-Sister Orzelska and the others, in the
train of the paternal Man of Sin; and makes acquaintance with Friedrich.
He is son of the female Konigsmark called Aurora ("who alone of mortals
could make Charles Twelfth fly his ground"); nephew, therefore, of the
male Konigsmark who was cut down long ago at Hanover, and buried in
the fireplace. He resembles his Father in strength, vivacity, above all
things in debauchery, and disregard of finance. They married him at the
due years to some poor rich woman; but with her he has already ended;
with her and with many others. Courland, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Anne
Iwanowna with the big cheek:--the reader has perhaps searched out th