rtant publications,
gave a multitude of orders to artists, founded prizes for excellence,
spent enormous sums in this unselfish manner, and at length got into
difficulties. Full, however, of generous enthusiasm, and unwilling to
leave his work half finished, he borrowed money in all directions, and
at length found his way to the famous usurer in the Kolomna. Having
obtained from this man a very extensive loan, the young noble all at
once underwent a complete transformation. He became, as by enchantment,
the enemy of rising intellect and talent, the persecutor of all he had
previously protected. It was just then that the French Revolution broke
out. This event gave him a handle for suspicion. In every thing he
detected some revolutionary tendency; in every word, in every expressed
opinion, he saw a dangerous hint or perfidious insinuation. The disease
gained on him till he almost began to suspect himself. He laid false
informations, fabricated the foulest charges, and caused the ruin of
numbers of innocent people. At first, his guilty manoeuvres were
undetected, and, when found out, they were thought to proceed from
insanity. Report was made to the Empress, who deprived him of his
office. But his severest sentence was the contempt he read in the faces
of his countrymen. I need not describe the sufferings of this vain and
insolent spirit, the tortures he endured from crushed pride, defeated
ambition, ruined expectations. At last his monomania--for such it must
surely have been--aggravated by regret and chagrin, became insanity, and
in a frightful paroxysm the unhappy maniac committed suicide.

"Not less remarkable than the fate of this wretched young man was that
of a lady who passed at that time for the most beautiful woman in St
Petersburg. My father has often assured me, that he never beheld any
thing to be compared to her. Possessing, besides her beauty, the not
less fascinating charms of wit, intellect, wealth, and high rank, she
was of course surrounded by a swarm of admirers. The most remarkable of
these was Prince R., the flower of all the young nobles of that day, and
to whom the palm was universally conceded, not only for beauty of
person, but for high qualities and chivalry of character. He was well
qualified for a hero of romance, or a woman's beau-ideal. Deeply and
passionately enamoured of the young countess, his affection met with as
pure and ardent a return. But her relations disapproved the match. The
pri