662 



Madame cle Sta'et's Ten Vear/ Exile. 



omnipotent empire of lier son. Slie 

 lives in tiie palace of tiie Tauiida, and 

 to get to licr apartment you iiave to 

 cross a lial!, built by Prince Potemkin, 

 of incomparable grandeur ; a winter 

 jrardon occupies a part of it, and you 

 see the trees and plants through the 

 pillars which surround the middle in- 

 closure. Every thing in this residence 

 is colossal ; the conceptions of the 

 prince who built it were fantastically 

 gigantic. He had towns built in the 

 Crimea, solely that the empress might 

 see them on her passage ; he ordered 

 the assault of a fortress, to please a 

 beautiful woman, the Princess Dolgo- 

 rouki, Mho had disdained his suit. 



THE GREAT RU.SSIAN NOBILITY. 



I went to spend a day at the country 

 seat of Prince Narischliiu, great cham- 

 berlain of the court, au amiable, easy, 

 and polished man, but who cannot exist 

 without a fete; it is at Iiis house that 

 you obtain a correct notion of that vi- 

 vacity in their tastes, which explains 

 the defects and qualifies of the Rus- 

 sians. The house of M. de Narischlcin 

 is always open, and if there happen to 

 be only twenty persons at his country 

 se^, he begins to be weary of this phi- 

 loSphical retreat. Politf^ to strangers, 

 always iu movement, and yet perfectly 

 capable of the reflection required to 

 stand well at court : greedy of the en- 

 joyments of imagination, but placing 

 these only in things and not iu books; 

 impatient every where but at court, 

 wiltv when it is to his advantage t») Ix; 



so; magnificent rather than ambitious' 

 and seeking in every thing for a certain 

 Asiatic grandeui-, in which fortune and 

 rank are more couKi)ioiious than per- 

 Fonal advantages. His country seat is 

 as agreeable as it is passible for a place « 

 of the kind to be, created by the hand 

 of man : all the suvroundiug country 

 is marshy and barren ; so as to make 

 this residence a perfect Oasis. On as* 

 tending the terrace, you see the gulph 

 of Finland, and perceive in the distance 

 the palace v, Inch Peter I. built upon its, 

 borders ; but the space which separate^ 

 it from tiie sea and the palace is almost 

 a waste, and the parl^ of M. Narischkiu 

 alone charms the eye of the observer. We 

 dined iu the house of the Moldavians, 

 that is to siiy, iu a saloon built accord- 

 ing to the taste of these peojde ; it was 

 arranged so as to protect from the heat 

 of the sun, a precaution rather needless 

 in Russia. However the imagination 

 is imju'cssed to that degree M'ith the 



idea that you are living among a people 

 who have only come into the North oy 

 accident, that it appears natural to find 



there the customs of the South, as if the 

 Russians were some day or other to 

 bring to Petersburg the climate of their 

 old country. The table was covered 

 with the fruits of all countries, accord- 

 ing to the custom taken from the East, 

 of only letting the fruits apjjear, while 

 a crowd of servants carried lound to 

 each guest the dishes of meat and ve- 

 getables they required. 



END OF THE PIETV-FIRST VOLUME. 



-is&ri 



