OFFICIAL LIFE IN ST. PETERSBURG 1892-1894 111 



higher ranges of agriculture, commerce, and manufac 

 ture. At St. Petersburg, when I wished to meet such men, 

 who added to the peaceful glories of the empire, I went to 

 their houses in the university quarter; at Berlin I met 

 them also at court. 



As to court episodes during my stay, one especially 

 dwells in my memory. On arriving rather early one even 

 ing, I noticed a large, portly man, wearing the broad red 

 ribbon of the Legion of Honor, and at once saw that he 

 could be no other than Prince Victor Napoleon, the Bona 

 parte heir to the crown of France. Though he was far 

 larger than the great Napoleon, and had the eyes of his 

 mother, Princess Clothilde, his likeness to his father, 

 Prince Napoleon (&quot;Plon-Plon&quot;), whom I had seen years 

 before at Paris, was very marked. Presently his brother, 

 who had just arrived from his regiment in the Caucasus, 

 came up and began conversation with him. Both seemed 

 greatly vexed at something. On the arrival of the 

 Italian ambassador, he naturally went up and spoke to 

 the prince, who was the grandson of King Victor Emman 

 uel; but the curious thing was that the French ambassa 

 dor, Count de Montebello, and the prince absolutely cut 

 each other. Neither seemed to have the remotest idea 

 that the other was in the room, and this in spite of the fact 

 that the Montebellos are descended from Jean Lannes, the 

 stable-boy whom Napoleon made a marshal of France and 

 Duke of Montebello, thus founding the family to which 

 the French ambassador belonged. The show of coolness 

 on the part of the imperial family evidently vexed the 

 French pretender. He was, indeed, allowed to enter the 

 room behind the imperial train ; but he was not permitted 

 to sit at the imperial table, being relegated to a distant 

 and very modest seat. I was informed that, though the 

 Emperor could, and did, have the prince to dine with him 

 in private, he felt obliged, in view of the relations between 

 Russia and the French Republic, to carefully avoid any 

 special recognition of him in public. 



A far more brilliant visitor was the Ameer of Bokhara. 



