d; "_les extremes se touchent_," in manners as in
literature: but for the riband of the Golden Fleece, which crossed his
breast, there was nothing to remind me that I was conversing with the
statesman, who, after the armistice of Plesswitz, held the destinies
of all Europe in his hands. After some conversation, the prince asked
me to call upon him on a certain forenoon.

Most of the diplomatic corps were present, one of whom was the amiable
and well-known Marshal Saldanha, who, a few years ago, played so
prominent a part in the affairs of Portugal. The usual resources of
whist and the tea-buffet changed the conversational circle, and at
midnight there was a general movement to the Kleine Redouten Saal,
where the Armen Ball had attracted so crowded an assemblage, that more
than one archduchess had her share of elbowing. Strauss was in all his
glory; the long-drawn impassioned breathings of Lanner having ceased
for ever, the dulcet hilarity of his rival now reigns supreme; and his
music, when directed by himself, still abounds in those exquisite
little touches, that inspire _hope_ like the breath of a May morning.
Strange to say, the intoxicating waltz is gone out of vogue with the
humbler classes of Vienna,--its natal soil. Quadrilles, mazurkas, and
other exotics, are now danced by every "Stubenmad'l" in Lerchenfeld,
to the exclusion of the national dance.

On the third day after this, at the appointed hour, I waited upon Prince
Metternich. In the outer antechamber an elderly well-conditioned
red-faced usher, in loosely made clothes of fine black cloth, rose from
a table, and on my announcing myself, said, "If you will go into that
apartment, and take a seat, his Excellency will be disengaged in a short
time." I now entered a large apartment, looking out on the little garden
of the bastion: an officer, in a fresh new white Austrian uniform, stood
motionless and pensive at one of the windows, waiting his turn with a
most formidable roll of papers. The other individual in the room was a
Hungarian, who moved about, sat down, and rose up, with the most
restless impatience, twirled his mustachios, and kept up a most lively
conversation with a caged parrot which stood on the table.

Two large pictures, hanging from the wall opposite the windows, were a
full length portrait of the emperor in his robes, the other a picture
of St. John Nepomuck, the patron saint of Bohemia, holding an olive
branch in his hand. The apartment, al