. After the two potentates had been introduced to each
other, the emperor, who had taken off his hat to bow to the Czar, put
it on again, but Peter remained uncovered, on the ground that he was
not at that time acting in his own character as Czar. The emperor,
seeing this, took off his hat again, and both remained uncovered during
the interview.

After this a great many parades and celebrations took place in Vienna,
all ostensibly in honor of the embassy, but really and truly in honor
of Peter himself, who still preserved his incognito. At many of these
festivities Peter attended, taking his place with the rest of the
subordinates in the train of the embassy, but he never appeared in his
own true character. Still he was known, and he was the object of a
great many indirect but very marked attentions. On one occasion, for
example, there was a masked ball in the palace of the emperor; Peter
appeared there dressed as a peasant of West Friesland, which is a part
of North Holland, where the costumes worn by the common people were
then, as indeed they are at the present day, very marked and peculiar.
The Emperor of Germany appeared also at this ball in a feigned
character--that of a host at an entertainment, and he had thirty-two
pages in attendance upon him, all dressed as butlers. In the course of
the evening one of the pages brought out to the emperor a very curious
and costly glass, which he filled with wine and presented to the
emperor, who then approached Peter and drank to the health of the
peasant of West Friesland, saying at the same time, with a meaning
look, that he was well aware of the inviolable affection which the
peasant felt for the Czar of Muscovy. Peter, in return, drank to the
health of the host, saying he was aware of the inviolable affection he
felt for the Emperor of Germany.

These toasts were received by the whole company with great applause,
and after they were drunk the emperor gave Peter the curious glass from
which he had drunk, desiring him to keep it as a souvenir of the
occasion.

These festivities in honor of the embassy at Vienna were at length
suddenly interrupted by the arrival of tidings from Moscow that a
rebellion had broken out there against Peter's government. This
intelligence changed at once all Peter's plans. He had intended to go
to Venice and to Rome, but he now at once abandoned these designs, and
setting out abruptly from Vienna, with General Le Fort, and a train of