some days, during which you will have time to make many
acquaintances about the court, and if practicable to effect a very
delicate object."

This, after considerable injunctions as to secrecy, and so forth, was no
less than to obtain a miniature, or a copy of a miniature, of the young
archduchess, who had been so dangerously ill during the siege of Vienna,
and whom report represented as exceedingly handsome. A good-looking young
fellow, a colonel, of two or three-and-twenty, with unlimited bribery, if
needed, at command, should find little difficulty in the mission: at
least, so Marmont assured me; and from his enthusiasm on the subject, I
saw, or fancied I saw, that he would have had no objection to be employed
in the service himself. For while professing how absurd it was to offer
any advice or suggestion on such a subject to one like myself, he entered
into details, and sketched out a plan of campaign, that might well have
made a chapter of "Gil Blas." It would possibly happen, he reminded me,
that the Austrian court would grow suspectful of me, and not exactly feel
at ease, were my stay prolonged beyond a day or two; in which case it was
left entirely to my ingenuity to devise reasons for my remaining; and I
was at liberty to dispatch couriers for instructions, and await replies,
to any extent I thought requisite. In fact, I had a species of general
commission to press into the service whatever resources could forward the
object of my mission, success being the only point not to be dispensed
with.

"Take a week, if you like--a month, if you must, Tiernay," said he to me at
parting; "but, above all, no failure! mind that--no failure!"

Chapter LII. "Komorn" Forty Years Ago.

I doubt if our great Emperor dated his first dispatch from Schoenbrunn with
a prouder sense of elevation, than did I write "Komorn" at the top of my
first letter to Marshal Marmont, detailing, as I had been directed, every
incident of my reception. I will not pretend to say that my communication
might be regarded as a model for diplomatic correspondence; but having
since that period seen something of the lucubrations of great envoys and
plenipos, I am only astonished at my unconscious imitation of their style;
blending, as I did, the objects of my mission with every little personal
incident, and making each trivial circumstance bear upon the fortune of my
embassy.

I narrated my morning interview with Prince Metternich, whose courte