&quot;ALL CONDITIONS OF MEN&quot;-1892-1894 47 



the salons of these two ladies that there took place the 

 conversations which I have recorded in my &quot;History of 

 the Warfare of Science, &quot; showing the development of a 

 legend regarding the miraculous cure of the Archbishop 

 of St. Petersburg by Father Ivan of Cronstadt. 



Another place which especially attracted me was the 

 house of General Ignatieff, formerly ambassador at Con 

 stantinople, where, on account of his alleged want of 

 scruples in bringing on the war with Russia, he received 

 the nickname Mentir Pasha. His wife was the daugh 

 ter of Koutousoff, the main Russian opponent of Napo 

 leon in 1812; and her accounts of Russia in her earlier 

 days and of her life in Constantinople were at times fas 

 cinating. 



I remember meeting at her house, on one occasion, the 

 Princess Ourousoff, who told me that the Emperor Al 

 exander had said to her, I wish that every one could see 

 Sardou s play Thermidor and discover what revolution 

 really is&quot;; and that she had answered, &quot;Revolutions are 

 prepared long before they break out.&quot; That struck me 

 as a very salutary bit of philosophy, which every Russian 

 monarch would do well to ponder. 



The young Princess Radzivill was also especially at 

 tractive. In one of her rooms hung a portrait of Balzac, 

 taken just after death, and it was most striking. This led 

 her to give me very interesting accounts of her aunt, Ma 

 dame de Hanska, to whom Balzac wrote his famous 

 letters, and whom he finally married. I met at her 

 house another lady of high degree, to whom my original 

 introduction had been somewhat curious. Dropping in 

 one afternoon at the house of Henry Howard, the British 

 first secretary, I met in the crowd a large lady, simply 

 dressed, whom I had never seen before. Being presented 

 to her, and not happening to catch her name, I still talked 

 on, and found that she had traveled, first in Australia, 

 then in California, thence across our continent to New 

 York; and her accounts of what she had seen interested 

 me greatly. But some little time afterward I met her 



