everal of the splendid _fetes_ given
by the Duke of Wellington, where he saw half the crowned heads of
Europe grouped among the gallant soldiers who had cut a way for them
to the guilty capital of France. Scott's reception, however, had been
distinguished to a degree of which Paul's language gives no notion.
The Noble Lords above named welcomed him with cordial satisfaction;
and the Duke of Wellington, to whom he was first presented by Sir John
Malcolm, treated him then, and ever afterwards, with a kindness and
confidence, which, I have often heard him say, he considered as "the
highest distinction of his life." He used to tell, with great effect,
the circumstances of his introduction to the Emperor Alexander, at a
dinner given by the Earl of Cathcart. Scott appeared, on that
occasion, in the blue and red dress of the Selkirkshire Lieutenancy;
and the Czar's first question, glancing at his lameness, was, "In what
affair were you wounded?" Scott signified that he suffered from a
natural infirmity; upon which the Emperor said, "I thought Lord
Cathcart mentioned that you had served." Scott observed that the Earl
looked a little embarrassed at this, and promptly answered, "Oh yes;
in a certain sense I have served--that is, in the yeomanry cavalry; a
home force resembling the Landwehr, or Landsturm."--"Under what
commander?"--"Sous M. le Chevalier Rae."--"Were you ever
engaged?"--"In some slight actions--such as the battle of the Cross
Causeway and the affair of Moredun-Mill."--"This," says Mr. Pringle of
Whytbank, "was, as he saw in Lord Cathcart's face, quite sufficient,
so he managed to turn the conversation to some other subject." It was
at the same dinner that he first met Platoff,[21] who {p.061} seemed
to take a great fancy to him, though, adds my friend, "I really don't
think they had any common language to converse in." Next day, however,
when Pringle and Scott were walking together in the Rue de la Paix,
the Hetman happened to come up, cantering with some of his Cossacks;
as soon as he saw Scott, he jumped off his horse, leaving it to the
Pulk, and, running up to him, kissed him on each side of the cheek
with extraordinary demonstrations of affection--and then made him
understand, through an aide-de-camp, that he wished him to join his
staff at the next great review, when he would take care to mount him
on the gentlest of his Ukraine horses.

[Footnote 21: Scott acknowledges, in a note to _St.