turning
to Melissino, said,

"May you never die till I slay you!"

The applause was furious, for he was their host and their general.

The Russian wit is of the energetic kind, devoid of grace; all they care
about is directness and vigour.

Voltaire had just sent the empress his "Philosophy of History," which he
had written for her and dedicated to her. A month after, an edition of
three thousand copies came by sea, and was sold out in a week, for all
the Russians who knew a little French were eager to possess a copy of the
work. The leaders of the Voltaireans were two noblemen, named,
respectively, Stroganoff and Schuvaloff. I have seen verses written by
the former of these as good as Voltaire's own verses, and twenty years
later I saw an ode by the latter of which Voltaire would not have been
ashamed, but the subject was ill chosen; for it treated of the death of
the great philosopher who had so studiously avoided using his pen on
melancholy themes. In those days all Russians with any pretensions to
literature read nothing but Voltaire, and when they had read all his
writings they thought themselves as wise as their master. To me they
seemed pigmies mimicking a giant. I told them that they ought to read all
the books from which Voltaire had drawn his immense learning, and then,
perhaps, they might become as wise as he. I remember the saying of a wise
man at Rome: "Beware of the man of one book." I wonder whether the
Russians are more profound now; but that is a question I cannot answer.
At Dresden I knew Prince Biloselski, who was on his way back to Russia
after having been ambassador at Turin. He was the author of an admirable
world on metaphysics, and the analysis of the soul and reason.

Count Panin was the tutor of Paul Petrovitch, heir-presumptive to the
throne. The young prince had a severe master, and dared not even applaud
an air at the opera unless he first received permission to do so from his
mentor.

When a courier brought the news of the sudden death of Francis I.,
Emperor of Germany and of the Holy Roman Empire, the czarina being at
Czarsko-Zelo, the count minister-tutor was in the palace with his pupil,
then eleven years old. The courier came at noon, and gave the dispatch
into the hands of the minister, who was standing in the midst of a crowd
of courtiers of whom I was one. The prince imperial was at his right
hand. The minister read the dispatch in a low voice, and then said:

"This is news i