few hours, we were on our way to the
jointure-house. It was a picturesque old building, the residence of the
Father Abbot, in the times before the insatiable hand of Somerset had
fallen upon the monasteries. We reached it in the twilight of a gentle
day, when all its shrubs and flowers were filling the air with freshness
and fragrance. I found my mother less enfeebled than I had expected; and
still affectionate and tender, as she had always been to her long-absent
son. She was still fully susceptible of the honours which had now opened
before me. Clotilde almost knelt before her noble air and venerable
beauty. My mother could not grow weary with gazing on the expressive
countenance of my beautiful wife. I had secured my parent's comfort for
life; and I, too, was happy.

* * * * *

My embassy, like all other embassies, had its vexations; but on the
whole I had reason to congratulate myself on its acceptance. My
reception at St Petersburg was most distinguished; I had arrived at a
fortunate period. The French expedition to Egypt had alarmed the Russian
councils for Constantinople; a possession to which every Russian looks,
in due time, as naturally as to the right of his copecks and caftan. But
the victory of Aboukir, which had destroyed the French fleet, again
raised the popular exultation, and English heroism was the topic of
every tongue. The incomparable campaign of the Russian army in Italy;
the recovery, in three months, of all which it had cost the power of
France, and the genius of her greatest general, in two years of pitched
battles, sanguinary sieges, artful negotiation, and incessant intrigue,
to obtain, excited the nation to the highest degree of enthusiasm, and
the embassy basked in the broadest sunshine of popularity. Fete now
succeeded fete; the standards taken in Suwarrow's battles, the proudest
trophies ever won by Russian arms, were carried in procession to the
cathedral; illuminations of the capital, balls in the palaces, and
public sports on the waters and banks of the Neva, kept St Petersburg in
a perpetual tumult of joy.

But all was not sunshine: the character of the sovereign in a despotism
demands perpetual study; and Paul was freakish and headstrong beyond all
human calculation. No man was more misunderstood at a distance, nor less
capable of being understood near. He had some striking qualities. He was
generous, bold, and high-principled; but the simplest accide