was a man of high ability. He was employed in the
reign of Catherine II. and of Paul, first as secretary to the cabinet,
and then, in 1780, as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In his
desire to avoid the countless appeals by which he was besieged, he
made himself as inaccessible as possible. Women sometimes followed
him into his carriage. He would answer their demands with "I shall
forget," and if it was a case of a petition with "I shall lose it."
His greatest gift was a thorough and exact knowledge of the Russian
language. In addition to this he boasted a phenomenal memory and an
astonishing facility of putting his thoughts into words. I give a
well-known instance in proof thereof. On one occasion the Empress
ordered him to draw up a ukase, which, however, a great pressure of
business caused him to forget. The first time he saw the Empress
again, after conferring with him on several matters of administration,
she asked him for the ukase. Bezborodko, not the least bit in the
world dismayed, drew a sheet of paper out of his portfolio, and
without a moment's hesitation improvised the whole thing from
beginning to end. Catherine was so well pleased with this presentment
that she took the paper from him to look at it. Her surprise may be
imagined at the sight of a sheet that was quite blank! Bezborodko
began elaborate excuses, but she stopped him with compliments, and the
next day made him Privy Councillor.

Another Russian, whose memory was as marvellous as Prince
Bezborodko's, was Count Buturlin, whom I knew quite well at Moscow,
where, by the way, we lived so far apart that whenever I supped with
Countess Buturlin I was obliged to go two miles. The Count, through
his experience and his knowledge, is one of the most remarkable men I
have ever known. He speaks all the languages with extraordinary ease,
and his information on all sorts of subjects renders his conversation
infinitely fascinating. But his superiority over others never
prevented him from being very unaffected, nor from treating his
friends with good-nature and generosity. He owned a huge library in
Moscow, composed of the rarest and most valuable books in different
languages. His memory was such that when he was recounting a
historical or any other anecdote he could at once tell in what room
and on what shelf of his library the book was that he had just cited.
I was greatly amazed at this, yet a thing as fully astonishing was to
hear him talk of all t