ous
but haughty politeness was not a whit shaken by the calamitous position of
his country, and who wished to treat the great events of the campaign as
among the transient reverses which war deals out, on this side, to-day, on
that, to-morrow. I told that my confidence in the impregnable character of
Kuffstein only raised a smile, for it had already been surrendered to the
Tyrolese; and I summed up my political conjectures by suggesting that
there was enough of calm confidence in the minister's manner to induce me
to suspect that they were calculating on the support of the northern
powers, and had not given up the cause for lost. I knew for certain that a
Russian courier had arrived and departed since my own coming; and although
the greatest secrecy had attended the event, I ascertained the fact, that
he had come from St. Petersburg, and was returning to Moscow, where the
Emperor Alexander then was. Perhaps I was a little piqued, I am afraid I
was, at the indifference manifested at my own presence, and the little, or
indeed no importance, attached to my prolonged stay. For when I informed
Count Stadion that I should await some tidings from Vienna, before
returning thither, he very politely expressed his pleasure at the prospect
of my company, and proposed that we should have some partridge shooting,
for which the country along the Danube is famous. The younger brother of
this minister, Count Ernest Stadion, and a young Hungarian magnate,
Palakzi, were my constant companions. They were both about my own age, but
had only joined the army that same spring, and were most devoted admirers
of one who had already won his epaulettes as a colonel in the French
service. They showed me every object of interest and curiosity in the
neighborhood, arranged parties for riding and shooting, and, in fact,
treated me in all respects like a much valued guest--well repaid, as it
seemed, by those stories of war and battlefields which my own life and
memory supplied.

My improved health was already noticed by all, when Metternich sent me a
most polite message, stating, that if my services at Vienna could be
dispensed with for a while longer, that it was hoped I would continue to
reside where I had derived such benefit, and breathe the cheering breezes
of Hungary for the remainder of the autumn.

It was full eight-and-twenty years later that I accidentally learned to
what curious circumstance I owed this invitation. It chanced that the
young