the imperial family always took part in the battues, the empress's skill with her gup being very remarkable.

All the chroniclers of the time are full of a wonderful entertainment-"the most extraordinary spectacle ever witnessed in modern times," a friend of Lagarde called a friend of Lagarde called it-styled a "carrousel," which took place in the beginning of December. It was a sort of assault-at-arms held in the imperial riding-school. The number of spectators was limited to a thousand, all specially invited by the court. The seats at one end of the building were reserved for the royalties. Those at the other, for the patronesses of the fête, twenty-four young ladies of the highest families in Vienua, chosen specially for their beauty. They were divided into four companies, distinguished by the color of their mantles, one being black, a second scarlet, a third crimson, and a fourth blue. The competitors, at tired in antique Spanish dress, were similarly divided into corresponding bands. The main body of spectators consisted of the chief members of the Austrian aristocracy and the corps diplomatique. Among those who attracted most attention were Prince Esterhazy, in a hussar uniform entirely embroidered with the finest pearls and diamonds, valued at four million florins; and Lady Castlereagh, tremendous as usual in tawdry finery, but specially conspicuous on this occasion with her husband's Order of the Garter worn as an ornament in her hair. The entertainment resembled the military tournaments of our own day, and consisted of tent-pegging, lemon-slicing, and riding at the ring. It concluded with a quadrille on horseback, in which all the competitors took part, accompanied by their squires. Every one then proceeded to the palace, where a great banquet and ball took place.

Besides those officially concerned therein, the congress attracted crowds of visitors from every country. Vienna during the winter of 1814 became a sort of rendezvous for the European aristocracy. They thronged to the Austrian capital, partly to share in the gayeties of the congress, partly to congratulate one another that the bad times were over at last. Owing to the extraordinary changes of the last twenty-five years, friends who had been separated for many a long day were now able to meet again and talk over their vicissitudes. Some who at the beginning

of the period had been wealthy French nobles were now penniless adventurers, earning a precarious living as underlings in the service of some foreign state. Others, especially military men, had prospered beyond their wildest dreams. General Tettenborn, of the Russian staff, was an example of the latter. In 1809, after the marriage of Napoleon with Marie Louise, he had been sent to the Austrian embassy in Paris as military attaché. "I need not enter into any detail of the gay life I led in Paris," said he in a naïf confession to Lagarde, "France was then in the zenith of her prosperity and glory, and the Austrian embassy enjoyed the marked favor of the court. Amid the universal revelry, I unfortunately neglected to balance my expenditure with my receipts. My creditors became impatient, and I soon found that the only means of extricating myself was to quit the scene of temptation." However, this proved to be the beginning of greatness. Tettenborn returned for a time to his regiment, then stationed in an Austrian village, where life was very dull. When therefore war broke out between France and Russia, the young soldier, like a true condottiere, offered his sword to the Tsar. He distinguished himself greatly in the campaign of Moscow. His first stroke of luck was the capture of Napoleon's military chest, "a considerable part of its contents falling to his lot by way of reward.' He was given the command of Hamburg after the expulsion of Davoust; and so high was the value set on his services that at the end of the war he was raised to the rank of general, and received an estate in Westphalia valued at 40,000 florins a year. pleasant to notice that Tettenborn's first act on coming into his good fortune was to pay his creditors in Paris to the full.

It is

Few of those present at Vienna had gone through such a strange career as the Countess Rosalie Rezewoffski. Her mother, Princess Lubomirski, had at the time of the French Revolution been resident in Paris. Rashly remaining there during the Reign of Terror, she had been arrested as a spy and placed in the Conciergerie. After a hasty trial she was condemned and executed, leaving behind her, alone in the French metropolis, a daughter, Rosalie, aged five. The orphan found a protectress in the kind-hearted Citoyenne Bertot, the prison laundress.

At last peace came in 1801. Numerous foreign visitors began to appear at Paris, and among them was Count Rezewoffski, brother of Princess Lubomirski, eager to discover the secret of his sister's fate. He obtained full information as to her arrest, imprisonment, and execution. But the authorities of the Conciergerie had lost sight of Madame Bertot, and he was unable to discover the slightest trace of his niece Rosalie. One morning, however, while crossing the courtyard of his hotel, he met a young girl carrying a basket of linen. She bore such a striking resemblance to his dead sister that the count was amazed. He hurriedly demanded her name, and was delighted to receive the hoped-for answer-Rosalie. He then accompanied her to the dwelling of the Bertots, where he thanked the astonished laundress for her kindness to his niece. On returning to Poland with Rosalie, he took Madame Bertot and her children with him. The boys were educated at Wilna at his expense and received commissions in the Polish army. The girls, richly dowered by the count, were wedded to Polish gentlemen. Rosalie herself, on coming to years of discretion, married her cousin, the younger Count Rezewoffski.

Perhaps the most significant examples of capricious fortune were to be found in the ex-empress of the French, Marie Louise, and her little son, the young Napoleon, or, as he was styled in Vienna, the Prince of Parma. Having placed herself under the protection of her father after Napoleon's abdication, Marie Louise had come to Vienna with her child. She lived very quietly in the suburbs, at Schönbrunn, and took no part in the festivities of the congress. Marie Louise had inherited her father's cold heart and apathetic mind. She seemed in no way upset by the sudden change in her position, and was quite content to sit at home playing duets with Baron Neipperg, with whom she subsequently contracted a morganatic marriage. Her little son was naturally an object of intense interest. Visitors to the congress crowded to Schönbrunn to see him. He was a lovely child, with fair complexion, and silky golden hair falling in curls upon his shoulders, and charmed everybody by his gentle ways and artless prattle.

One of the best-known characters in Vienna at this time was Field-Marshal the

The

Prince de Ligne. Born in 1735, of an old and wealthy Belgian family, Charles Joseph, Prince de Ligne, had entered the Austrian army in 1752. He served with great credit through the Seven Years' War, and was made a major-general at the coronation of Joseph II. in 1780. He then entered the Russian service, and held a command at the storming of Oczakoff in 1788. He was a great favorite with the Tsarina, Catherine II., and accompanied her in her celebrated journey through the Crimea. In 1789 he resumed his duties in the Austrian army. He received the rank of field-marshal in 1808, and was also colonel of the regiment of Trabans. Prince de Ligne was one of those persons who, though of independent character, have a natural genius for winning the esteem of sovereigns. A great traveller, he was equally welcome at Versailles, Vienna, and St. Petersburg. To a noble bearing and unsullied reputation he added the possession of great literary abilities. His mélanges littéraires are as conspicuous for extent of knowledge as for perfection of style. According to Madame de Stäel, he is the only foreigner who has ever become a model to French writers in their own language. Though in his eightieth year, he was still remarkable for his fondness for society. He assiduously attended all the festivities of the congress, and was much in request owing to his knowledge of the world, and his skill as a raconteur. He loved the companionship of young men, and used to give them much advice, of the kind that would now be termed fin de siècle. 'Enjoy your youth while it lasts," he used to tell them," and adopt as your maxim, carelessness till twenty-five, gayety till forty, and philosophy to the end of life."

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In the beginning of December, while the congress was still in full swing, he caught a chill whien confined him to his room. Erysipelas set in, and the doctors were compelled to inform him that his time was come. The Prince de Ligne received the dread summons as gayly as he would have accepted an invitation to a dance or a challenge to a duel. will be sorry," he remarked, "to relieve the monotony of pleasure by the funeral of a field-marshal." He drew up a dissertation in which fourteen reasons were given for not fearing death. He spoke approvingly of Petronius Arbiter who,

"No one

wishing that his death should be as voluptuous as his life, commanded soft music to be played, and fine poetry to be recited to him in his last moments ;" and died on December 13th in the arms of his friends. His obsequies were celebrated with full military state, and in spite of the sincere regret felt for him, his kindness in providing society with so imposing a spectacle at that identical time was universally acknowledged.

As might have been expected, the list of visitors to Vienna included many persons whose social position and private character were not quite faultless. So brilliant a reunion of rank and wealth afforded a rich hunting-ground for adventurers of every kind.

The most singular of these was a certain George Aïde, ex-prince of Mount Lebanon. He was the son of an Armenian merchant, settled at Constantinople. The latter, in return for a rich donation to the Catholic monastery of Mount Lebanon, had received from the Pope the Order of the Golden Spur. He sent his son George to Vienna to study European languages and perfect himself in the details of commerce. But these possessed little attraction for the young man's aspiring mind. Nature had intended him to shine in the great world, and he was resolved to obey its promptings. Soon, therefore, after his arrival at Vienna, he assumed the title of Prince of Mount Lebanon; and by dint of a handsome face and figure, a fixed air of calm assurance, and an extraordinary promptness to avenge the slightest insult by an appeal to arms, he at length obtained a footing in Austrian society. After some time he received a summons home. On arriving at Constantinople he explained to his father the absolute impossibility of his ever settling down to a commercial life, and obtained leave to travel. He first visited Palermo, where he made friends. with the Hon. Frederick North, son of the Earl of Guildford. From Sicily, armed with letters of introduction to various members of the English aristocracy, he passed to London. He there obtained a great reputation as a leader of fashion. At last his father refused any longer to answer his inordinate demands for money, and the Prince of Mount Lebanon found himself compelled, like Napoleon after the burning of Moscow, to beat a retreat. His genius naturally led him to Vienna,

where the congress was now in full swing. He here met an old friend, Mr. Merry, who introduced him to the English ambassador, Lord Castlereagh, with whom he became very intimate. He had by now dropped his title of prince, but by the exercise of his old arts still retained his position in society. There were few functions of the congress in which he did not take a prominent share. But he was coldly received, except at the English Embassy, and the Prince de Ligne, when introducing him to Madame de Stäel, slyly whispered: "Je vous présente un homme qui n'est pas présentable." George Aïde returned to England after the congress and married an heiress, Miss Collier. After his marriage he went to Paris, where he was shot in a duel, caused solely by his own rudeness, by a M. de Bombelles.

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It would be impossible within the limits of a single short essay to recount even the names of all the striking characters whom Vienna gathered within its walls during the winter of 1814. It remains to say a few words about the political work of the congress. To one fresh from the heroism and bloodshed of Leipzig, the transition to the tinsel glories of Vienna is like the farce succeeding the tragedy. "Never," says Lagarde, had such important and complicated interests been discussed amid so much gayety and dissipation. The universal frivolity penetrated to the political deliberations of the congress. Called on to settle the affairs of Europe after a period of unprecedented upheaval, the assembled statesmen knew of no modes of action save intrigue and chicanery, of no political ideal save the equilibrium of dynastic interests. As time passed on, and the diplomatic wrangle grew worse and worse, people began to wonder for what purpose the congress had met at all.

"All the base passions," wrote Stein to his wife, seem to be unchained to destroy our hopes and throw us back into new complications. It is now the time of littlenesses and mediocrities; they all turn up again, and reoccupy their old place, and those men who have risked their all are forgotten and neglected."

For this state of things no one was more responsible than Prince Metternich. That light-hearted genius had received the post of Austrian States-Chancellor (primeminister) in 1810. Possessed of a graceful figure, a winning address, and a pair

treachery toward Napoleon had been of too great service to the Bourbons to be overlooked; and the lucky French marshal was left in undisturbed enjoyment of his thirty pieces of silver.

The interest of the congress soon began to centre round the question of Saxony. Long and furious were the conferences between Metternich and the Tsar. Alexander, impatient of opposition, told everybody that the Austrian Minister was a miserable red-tapeist. He sneered at him in public, and exclaimed quite loud one day, in his hearing, "I despise a man who does not wear a uniform !" The English and Austrian Governments, with the assistance of Talleyrand, drew up a secret treaty, by which they bound themselves to go to war against Russia and Prussia, unless the two latter abated their demands. The treaty was sent to Paris for the French king's consideration. Suddenly, in March, 1815, Napoleon returned to France. Louis XVIII. had to post off to Belgium in such desperate hurry that he left the treaty behind him at the Tuileries. Napoleon, hoping to still further increase the dissension among the allies, gave it to the Russian envoy in Paris, who forwarded it to Vienna. Great was the astonishment of Alexander when he discovered that the hospitable Francis had for the past few weeks been making careful preparations for war against him. He immediately sent for Metternich, and confronted him with his handiwork. The

versatile States-Chancellor, for once in his life, was dumbfounded. But it would have been madness to quarrel when Napoleon was about to burst into Belgium at the head of 120,000 men. Alexander threw the treaty into the fire, promised never to refer to the subject again, and extended his hand to the exposed plotter in an affecting but hypocritical reconciliation. It is, however, almost certain that the return of Napoleon only prevented the congress ending in a general European war. The diplomatists were now compelled to conclude their differences. In June, 1815, Napoleon was finally crushed at Waterloo. In September the Holy Alliance was formed between Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The last touches were given to the new map of Europe, and the golden age, as Alexander fondly deemed it, at last began.

Of the settlement made by the congress of Vienna not a vestige remains. From the cataclysm of the last twenty-five years the sovereigns and statesmen who met together in the winter of 1814 had learned nothing. The apostles of reaction, their object, so far as any object shines through the gloom of mutual distrust, was to restore the old state of things, and establish guarantees for its continuance. The Revolutionary Epoch had seen the birth of two great ideals, liberty and nationality. A system which affected to ignore them both contained within itself the seeds of its own ruin.-Temple Bar.

WHO is there who has not felt the charm, after a day's sight-seeing in some foreign town, of going out of the glare and heat of the streets into the dimness and quiet of one of the old churches? For my own part, as a persistent sight-seer and visitor of churches, I have often been tempted, when there resting, to secure a further retreat from publicity in one of the dark little confessionals which line the walls. There is a strange attraction about them, partly because they are so cool and quiet, partly because of the experiences, the tragedies, the penitence which those brown wooden walls have listened to. But

the only time I gave way to the temptation I was punished for my indiscretion in a way which I can never forget, and was called upon to solve a problem in casuistry which might have taxed the skill of the experienced confessor whose place I had usurped.

I was travelling in Italy, and had come to Florence, meaning to remain only for a few days. few days. The fascination of the place, however, which I had known well in years past, held me strongly, and the days grew into weeks. It was winter when I came, but now the spring was at hand, and the wonderful bloom of flowers was begin