was only with much difficulty that I was able to prevent myself from
laughing. At last I got rid of all these people, and we sat down to
dinner. I tried my best to converse with those at table, but it was
useless. At last I touched on agricultural topics, and then they
began to thaw. I was at once informed of all their different
farmsteads and herds of cattle. An almost interesting discussion
took place as to whether the oxen in the upper part of the country
were fatter than those in the lowlands.

* * * * *

I was told that as the next day was Sunday, I must spend it at Hof,
and listen to a sermon. Never before had I heard such a sermon! The
clergyman began by giving us an account of all the marriages that had
taken place from Adam's time to that of Noah. We were spared no
detail, so that the gentlemen all laughed and the poor ladies
blushed. The dinner went off as on the previous day. In the
afternoon all the ladies came to pay me their respects. Gracious
heavens! What ladies, too! They were all as ugly as the gentlemen,
and their head-dresses were so curious that swallows might have built
their nests in them.

As for Baireuth itself, and its petty Court, the picture she gives of it
is exceedingly curious. Her father-in-law, the reigning Margrave, was a
narrow-minded mediocrity, whose conversation 'resembled that of a sermon
read aloud for the purpose of sending the listener to sleep,' and he had
only two topics, Telemachus, and Amelot de la Houssaye's _Roman History_.
The Ministers, from Baron von Stein, who always said 'yes' to everything,
to Baron von Voit, who always said 'no,' were not by any means an
intellectual set of men. 'Their chief amusement,' says the Margravine,
'was drinking from morning till night,' and horses and cattle were all
they talked about. The palace itself was shabby, decayed and dirty. 'I
was like a lamb among wolves,' cries the poor Margravine; 'I was settled
in a strange country, at a Court which more resembled a peasant's farm,
surrounded by coarse, bad, dangerous, and tiresome people.'

Yet her _esprit_ never deserted her. She is always clever, witty, and
entertaining. Her stories about the endless squabbles over precedence
are extremely amusing. The society of her day cared very little for good
manners, knew, indeed, very little about them, but all questions of