most Christian, most Faithful
and Apostolic, have tumbled them out, I, most Heretical, pick up as many
as I can; and perhaps, one day, I shall be courted for the sake of them
by those who want some. I preserve the breed: I said, counting my stock
the other day, "A Rector like you, my Father, I could easily sell for
300 thalers; you, Reverend Father Provincial, for 600; and so the rest,
in proportion." When one is not rich, one makes speculations.'

"From want of memory, and of opportunities to see oftener and longer the
Greatest Man that ever existed [Oh, MON PRINCE!], I am obliged to stop.
There is not a word in all this but was his own; and those who have seen
him will recognize his manner. All I want is, to make him known to those
who have not had the happiness to see him. His eyes are too hard in the
Portraits: by work in the Cabinet, and the hardships of War, they had
become intense, and of piercing quality; but they softened finely in
hearing, or telling, some trait of nobleness or sensibility. Till his
death, and but quite shortly before it,--notwithstanding many levities
which he knew I had allowed myself, both in speaking and writing,
and which he surely attributed only to my duty as opposed to my
interest,--he deigned to honor me with marks of his remembrance; and has
often commissioned his Ministers, at Paris and at Vienna, to assure me
of his good-will.

"I no longer believe in earthquakes and eclipses at Caesar's death,
since there has been nothing of such at that of Friedrich the Great. I
know not, Sire, whether great phenomena of Nature will announce the day
when you shall cease to reign [great phenomena must be very idle if they
do, your Highness!]--but it is a phenomenon in the world, that of a King
who rules a Republic by making himself obeyed and respected for his
own sake, as much as by his rights" (Hear, hear). [Prince de Ligne,
_Memoires et Melanges,_ i. 22-40.]

Prince de Ligne thereupon hurries off for Petersburg, and the final
Section of his Kaiser's Visit. An errand of his own, too, the Prince
had,--about his new Daughter-in-law Massalska, and claims of extensive
Polish Properties belonging to her. He was the charm of Petersburg and
the Czarina; but of the Massalska Properties could retrieve nothing
whatever. The munificent Czarina gave him "a beautiful Territory in
the Crim," instead; and invited him to come and see it with her, on his
Kaiser's next Visit (1787, the aquatic Visit and the hig