The fears of those who surrounded the King were hardly whispered; but I remember that one day, when I had gone to an exhibition of modern pictures with my governess, he approached me, making some remarks about the paintings, but his tongue did not obey his will, and I was quite unable to understand what he meant.

In contrast to the King's sedate and somewhat severe entourage, his second brother, Prince Charles, held a brilliant Court. Married to the handsome elder sister of the Princess of Prussia, who was fond of splendour and amusements, they both took care to surround themselves with men who were dandies and sportsmen and ladies who were pretty, lively and fashionable. The Princess was an inveterate theatre-goer, and accomplished the wonderful feat of seeing during one winter the then famous ballet, Flick and Flock, 123 times consecutively.

A fourth brother of the King, Prince Albrecht, also lived at Berlin; he was separated from his wife, a Princess of the Netherlands, and besides him there were only two or three unmarried Princes, distant cousins of the Sovereign, who led retired lives in their palaces, devoting themselves to art or science. Berlin at that time was a very small and simple town compared with its present splendour and expansion. Now it is perhaps the best-cared-for capital in the world; then, it had open gutters which were often very unsavoury. Few great families had houses of their own, and still fewer ever opened them.

Two Princes Radziwill inhabited a dignified palace, entre cour et jardin, in the Wilhelmsstrasse, one of the most aristocratic streets. Over the door was written up 'Hôtel de Radziwill.' The family was Polish, but the mother of the two brothers had been a Princess of Prussia and sister of the chivalrous Prince Ferdinand, and therefore related to the Royal Family.

They had married two sisters, daughters of Prince Clary, a Bohemian noble, and they each lived in a wing of the Palace, filling it with innumerable children. Their train de maison was patriarchal and simple, and they received only in a quiet and unobtrusive way.

Amongst the really Prussian families the Arnims were perhaps the most typical. They had a fine house, in which they lived in a kind of ascetic state. Tall, fair, stiff, aristocratic-looking, and caustic, they were a little difficult of approach, but upright and honourable in the extreme; they were excellent when one knew them well.

Not being a Prussian myself, and living with my guardian, who was a diplomat, and also being too young to be out, I never saw but one Prussian salon from the inside, and that was a very remarkable one. The mistress of it was the still very beautiful Countess Lottum. She was well past fifty in those days, but I think I never saw such extraordinary outward refinement. She attached the greatest importance to dress, and succeeded in turning herself out in the most finished and attractive way. Her apartment was as

perfect as herself, in the Parisian Louis the Fifteenth taste, and at a time when the average house was decked out, to its mistress's entire satisfaction, in mahogany and blue Utrecht velvet with a gum tree in the corner, that meant a good deal of initiative.

Only a very few ladies and all the most brilliant men frequented Countess Lottum's salon. She never asked girls, and the reason why I was taken there was because her lovely niece Wanda, who married a little later on Prince Putbus, her cousin, was my only and very intimate friend.

My guardian, who was also my uncle, being my father's youngest brother, was married to a lady who held at that time one of the greatest positions at Berlin, and though I was still in the schoolroom I was allowed to sit behind the tea-table (after dinner) when my aunt received every evening in what was called the avant soirée from nine o'clock till eleven.

The whole of the Diplomatic Corps, distinguished foreigners, and many of the gentlemen and ladies attached to the different Courts used to drop in, and I cannot remember an evening when somebody did not come. In spring the ladies often appeared in smart bonnets after a drive in the Thiergarten, for the latest dinner hour was half-past six.

My aunt was a beautiful needlewoman, and whoever came she never quitted her embroidery frame. I, too, had my work, to which I was supposed to attend if nobody spoke to me. Mlle. de Wa former lady-in-waiting of my aunt, who lived on in her house, dispensed the tea.

My aunt when she married my uncle was the widow of one of the last Prince Electors of Germany. Her husband, who was old, had surrounded his young and pretty wife with great splendour and luxury. She had great taste in dress and in arranging her house, and had many beautiful and costly things about her. She kept up a semi-royal state and habits and knew the whole of the cosmopolitan world of that day.

It was a wonder that, though my aunt never made any calls, except on the very greatest personages, and rarely appeared anywhere except at Court, her salon should have been so popular and sought after, but she had created for herself quite an exceptional position.

Though there were in those days no Ambassadors at Berlin, the diplomats formed the chief feature of society. The foreign Ministers were expected to receive a great deal, and they gave many balls and dinners. Many of them were still comparatively young men and glad to amuse themselves. Just opposite to us was the French Legation, filled at that time by the Marquis de Moustier. He had a great position, chiefly owing to the anxiety his master inspired. I shall never forget the agitation and excitement of the Court and society during a short visit of Prince Napoleon (Plon-Plon) to Berlin. He

lived at the Legation, and I saw him out of my window, driving up and down the perron of the house, fat, dark, and scowling. It was amusing to hear of the trouble everybody was taking to be sufficiently civil, without dropping too much of their conscience and dignity.

To the French Legation belonged a lady, the Marquise de Malaret, one of the Empress Eugénie's ladies. She was even in Paris a grande élégante, and besides she was clever, witty, and a thorough woman of the world. Some years later King Victor Emmanuel saw her, and was so pleased with her conversation that he insisted upon her husband being named as Minister to Turin. I had only been a few days at Berlin when my aunt sent for me one morning to present me to this lady. She was for those days very tall and had a Calmuck face. She talked loud and incessantly, but was natural and amusing. She wore the lately invented monster, a very large crinoline, and over it was stretched an extremely tight black-silk skirt.

One had to be very beautiful indeed to hold one's own dressed in the ugly fashions of those days. They might perhaps have been made a little more palatable by clever Parisian dressmakers, but on the ordinary person they were truly ghastly. There is a curious tendency amongst young painters of the present day to revive the crinoline in their pictures, as something poetic and mysterious, but in reality, and in everyday life, it was a very ugly thing.

The Russian Legation, which played a great part, was housed in the fine palace 'Unter den Linden.' It belonged to the Russian Government, and was in reality an hotel for Russian grand dukes, who were always passing forwards and backwards through Berlin.

Baron Budberg, the Russian Minister, was a clever but somewhat sarcastic man. Some of the ladies belonging to the Legation were very beautiful, like Countess Shouvalow and Baroness Mohrenheim, but the one who had the greatest position and whom I frequently saw at my aunt's receptions was Countess Adlerberg, the wife of the Military Attaché. Though no more young she was still very handsome and extremely witty. I heard her say one evening of a lady's dress, who was proud of her feet and shoulders and showed them a little too much, 'Cela commence trop tard et cela finit trop tôt.' She was much choyée by the Prussian Court, for she was supposed to be a daughter of a sister of Queen Louise, and though this relationship was not officially recognised, it was tacitly admittedindeed, the likeness between Countess Adlerberg and some of the Prussian princes could leave but little doubt. The thing which interested me most in this lady was that she had been first married to M. de Kruedener, the son of the famous Madame de Kruedener, whose psychic and occult powers and great influence on the Emperor Alexander the First made her name so celebrated at the beginning of the last century.

The Comte de Launay, who was for thirty years at first Sardinian

and then Italian Minister at Berlin, was married to a lady much older than himself, but she had a most beautiful and gifted daughter by her first marriage, Mlle. de Seigneux, who was immensely admired. To me she appeared, with her Grecian profile, long waved golden hair, and enchanting ways, a very 'Lorelei.'

It was during those evenings in my aunt's drawing-room that I made some lifelong friendships, now alas! ended, at least for this world. One of the fastest and most uninterrupted ones was that with Count Kalnoky, later on Austrian Ambassador in Rome and Petersburg, and for a long time Minister for Foreign Affairs at Vienna. Another was Count Ferdinand Trauttmannsdorff, who after a short and brilliant diplomatic career became Great Chamberlain to the Emperor of Austria. He was even in those early days a most magnificent and dignified personage, whose rather pompous ways were tempered by the kindest heart.

Some of the young princes, such as Prince William of Baden, who were quartered at Berlin or Potsdam, also frequently came to pass an hour before a ball or gay supper party, but as my uncle was Westmächtlich gesinnt' (a sympathiser with the Western Powers), it was natural that he and my aunt should have seen but little of the purely Prussian society.

I had when first I arrived been much struck with the very military aspect of the city. Whether one drove 'Unter den Linden' or rode in the Thiergarten, there were uniforms everywhere. Half the population seemed to consist of tall, flat-backed, square-shouldered officers, with light-blue eyes and sweeping blonde moustaches. They wore the large topped cap affected by the Russian Army, and their big sabres clanked by their sides.

In the spring the Thiergarten, though far less well kept than it is now, was a great resource, and the beau monde used to drive there after dinner. At the beginning of June, however, the great heat drove everybody into the country. Our summers were generally spent at my uncle's place'in Saxony, and the early autumns at Pisely, in Bohemia, which belonged to my aunt.

I don't think I cared much for the latter place, as, on account of the wildness of the surroundings, my usual walks, which were my only pleasure, were much circumscribed.

Knauthayn, my uncle's place in Saxony, had more charms for me than Bohemia. The country, though flat, was all meadow, river and oak woods. The house, which had been built for a bet by a M. de Dieskau in the seventeenth century, had I don't know how many storeys, and looked like the beginning of a tower of Babel, the object of the builder having been to make it as high as possible.

Unfortunately my uncle had in his bachelor days filled up the moat, which detracted from the originality of the design; but the house had in spite of that a good deal of style, and was pretty and

comfortable inside, with open fireplaces, large windows, beautiful parquet floors, fine pictures, and many articles of vertu.

My aunt and I spent nearly all our day at our embroidery frames, and in the evening I read out some historical novel to her, whilst she still went on working. It was a lonely life, for my uncle, who did not like the country till the shooting began, generally lingered on at Berlin till he went to his yearly cure at some watering-place. My only amusement was driving a four-in-hand of little Polish piebald ponies when I was sent to Leipzig, our nearest town, with Mlle. de W to do some commissions.

We had on our way there to pass a wood where there had been a sharp encounter during the Napoleonic wars, and at the corner of this wood and close to the road a French officer had been buried under a great oak tree. Every year, on the anniversary of the battle of Leipzig, a wreath of flowers was laid upon the grave by an unknown lady dressed in deep mourning, but nobody knew who she was. At the time I am speaking of more than forty years had gone by, but on the 18th of October the flowers were always fresh on the grave.

This reminds me of another historical link of some interest. We sometimes used to visit my father's second brother at his place Dölkau, which was about ten miles distant from us. The road lay right across the battlefields of Leipzig and of Lützen, where Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, fell pierced by a shot in his back. Nothing but flat cornfields stretched along on both sides of the road. At sunset these great plains look almost like the sea, with mirages of little red-roofed villages floating in the heated air. About half-way we drove through the little old-world town of Altranstädt, which belongs to our family, and where Charles the Twelfth of Sweden lived for two years previous to signing the peace which bears the name of this town, and by which he ended his German campaigns. An old groom of my grandfather's, who was a native of Altranstädt, told my father and my uncles that he had often seen the King of Sweden walking over the market-place there.

As the peace was signed in 1707 it takes one a good way back. At Dölkau the chair was still preserved on which Charles the Twelfth sat when he signed the treaty. The house, which had been built by my grandfather in a good Empire style, was situated on a lake amongst great oak woods. It contained many interesting heirlooms, but the thing which fascinated me most was a picture of Catharine the Second seated on a sofa and drinking tea with her sister, a Princess of Anhalt Zerbst, whilst her husband, Duke Peter of Holstein Gotthorb, leaned over the back of the sofa in a coat of silver cloth, with a red ribbon across his breast.

The figures were about one-third of life-size, and the faces showed by their varied expressions that careful attention had been paid to likeness. The Empress Catharine, debonnair and smiling in a dress