48 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-X 



again at the house of Princess Radzivill, and then found 

 that she was the English Duchess of Buckingham. One 

 day I had been talking with the Princess and her 

 guest on the treasures of the Imperial Library, and 

 especially the wonderful collection of autographs, among 

 them the copy-book of Louis XIV when a child, which 

 showed the pains taken to make him understand, even in 

 his boyhood, that he was an irresponsible autocrat. On 

 one of its pages the line to be copied ran as follows : 



L hommage est du aux Roys, ils font ce qu il leur plaist. Louis. 



Under this the budding monarch had written the same 

 words six times, with childish care to keep the strokes 

 straight and the spaces regular. My account of this hav 

 ing led the princess to ask me to take her and her friend 

 to the library and to show them some of these things, I 

 gladly agreed, wrote the director, secured an appoint 

 ment for a certain afternoon, and when the time came 

 called for the ladies. But a curious contretemps arose. 

 I had met, the day before, two bright American ladies, 

 and on their asking me about the things best worth 

 seeing, I had especially recommended them to visit the 

 Imperial Library. On arriving at the door with the prin 

 cess and the duchess, I was surprised to find that no prep 

 arations had been made to meet us, in fact, that our com 

 ing seemed to be a matter of surprise ; and a considerable 

 time elapsed before the director and other officials came 

 to us. Then I learned what the difficulty was. The two 

 American ladies, in perfectly good faith, had visited the 

 library a few hours before ; and, on their saying that the 

 American minister had recommended them to come, it 

 had been taken for granted at once that ihey were the 

 princess and the duchess, and they had been shown every 

 thing with almost regal honors, the officials never discov 

 ering the mistake until our arrival. 



The American colony at St. Petersburg was very small. 

 Interesting compatriots came from time to time on vari- 



