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"Dresden, August 19th.-In the streets are many French emigrants, who are travelling eastward to avoid their countrymen. They are allowed to stay only three days. Unhappy people! Yet they employ themselves in seeing everything curious, which they can get at; are serene, and even gay. So great a calamity could never light on shoulders, which could bear it so well. But, alas! the weight is not diminished by the graceful manner of supporting it. The sense however is less, by all that spleen and ill humor could add to torment the afflicted. Doubtless, there are many among them, who have a consciousness of rectitude to support them. This ground of hope in the kindness of that Being, who is to all his creatures an indulgent father, with the cheerfulness of temper, which nature has given to some of her favored children, may make their hearts beat lightly in their bosoms, while those of their more fortunate oppressors shall sink and sicken. For surely the oppressor can never be happy. I flatter myself with the belief, that a great majority of those in France would rejoice at an opportunity to call home their brethren, wandering in proscribed wretchedness through a world, which is to them almost a wilderness. But the day is yet, perhaps, at a distance. Oh God! it is thy wisdom

which hath ordained, and thy hand which heavily hath inflicted this blow, consistent most surely with those just decrees, which we may not presume to measure, nor even dare to know, but yet we know, for we feel, that thy mercy will season to those, who suffer them, the sharpness of these afflictions. Yes, we feel! and it is this consciousness, which, previous and paramount to all reasoning, has diffused through the whole human race, and impressed on the heart of each individual, the same conviction of his own existence, and the existence of God. Yes, we feel! and it is in the strict accordance between our finest feelings, and the principles of the religion we profess, that this stands demonstrated by their evidence to be of divine origin.' Here he first saw the Dutchess of Cumberland, and the Prince and Princesse de la Tour et Taxis, with all of

whom he kept up a correspondence for several years afterwards. The city of Dresden, its environs, its galleries of paintings, statuary, and other curiosities, drew from him stronger tokens of admiration, than he had before exhibited for similar objects in other places. He went to Court on one oc

casion an hour too late. Our readers will remember that in Paris he once went a day too early, and was reminded of his blunder by Marie Antoinette.

'August 28th.-Go to Court this morning an hour later than I ought to have done, owing to a mistake of my valetde-chambre, who, with every pretension to genius, and the like, has the misfortune to be a little stupid, and, though he boasts of a knowledge of three tongues, seems to understand neither. The Fourrier had announced the drawing-room for halb zwoelf, which, being translated from the German, is half past eleven, but he rendered it Anglicè, half after twelve.'

After remaining ten or twelve days in Dresden, he pursued his journey, and arrived at Vienna about the middle of September. The English Ambassador, Sir Morton Eden, was among his first acquaintances in the Austrian capital, though he paid his respects on the day of his arrival to M. Thugut, the Emperor's Prime Minister, and to some of the Ministers of foreign powers, to whom he had letters. He seemed here, as in Berlin, to fraternize with the Corps Diplomatique, and was soon on terms of social intimacy with several of the diplomatists and their families, which brought him of course into the rounds of the first society in Vienna.

Vienna, September 24th.-This morning Sir Morton Eden calls, and we go to Court. He presents me to the Emperor, who is ready in conversation. He is in very good spirits, having received favorable advices from the Rhine. The Archduke has driven the French back beyond the Lahn, and relieved the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein. A body of imperial troops is already up as high as Rastadt, in the view of cutting off the supplies of Moreau, who is still at Neuburg. The Emperor gives us his news, and expresses at the same time his

hope, that Moreau will not be able to effect his retreat. Indeed this hope amounts almost to expectation. He tells me, that in a month's time my way will be open into Switzerland, but observes that it will then be cold travelling.

"October 26th.-This morning Sir Morton Eden calls, and presents me to the Empress, who speaks a little to Colonel Hope, my co-presented, a few words to me, and has a long conversation with Sir Morton, who leans quietly against the wall. She seems to be a good sort of little woman; but, in the course of her conversation, she shows about the eyebrow something which bespeaks high spirit. She has the Austrian countenance a little.

After dinner, I visit

'Return home and write for the post. Madame Audenarde, who asks me, if it be true that I am charged here with a mission from Congress to ask the liberty of Lafayette. I laugh at this a little, and then, assuring her that there is no truth in that suggestion, say that it is a piece of folly to keep him prisoner. This brings her out violently against him, and to the same effect the Count Dietrichstein, who indeed is as much prompted to defend the Austrian administration, as to side with his friend. We examine the matter as coolly as their prejudices will admit; and, on the point of right, he takes the only tenable ground, viz. that the public safety being the supreme law of Princes, the Emperor, conceiving it dangerous to leave Lafayette and his associates at large, had arrested them, and keeps them still prisoners for the same reason. Lavaupallière, who comes in during the conversation, shows still more ill will to this unfortunate man, than any one else. He seems to flatter himself, that there is yet some chance of getting him hanged. He treats him not only as having been deficient in abilities, but as having been most ungrateful to the King and Queen; from which last charge I defend him, in order to see what may be the amount of the inculpation; and it resolves itself into two favors received from the Court. First, pardon for having gone to America, notwithstanding an order given him to the contrary;

and, next, promotion to the rank of Maréchal de Camp over the heads of several who were, many of them, men of family. To crown all, he accuses him of the want of courage, and declares that he has seen him contumeliously treated without resenting it. To this I give as peremptory a negative, as good breeding will permit, and he feels it.

'Indeed the conversation of these gentlemen, who have the virtue and good fortune of their grandfathers to recommend them, leads me almost to forget the crimes of the French Revolution; and often the unforgiving temper and sanguinary wishes, which they exhibit, make me almost believe, that the assertion of their enemies is true, viz. that it is the success alone, which has determined on whose side should be the crimes and on whose the misery.

'December 7th.-Madame Razomousky entertains us much by the histoires naives, which she gives of herself in her presentation here as Ambassadress, and her reception at Moscow by her father-in-law. She is a fine lively woman, with a considerable share of genius, and most playful imagination. She admires much the Empress of Russia, not merely as a great sovereign, but as a pleasant woman, and tells among other things a story of a sleighing party, in which her coachman overset her, and excused himself, by saying that he had tried for an hour to overturn the sleigh of a page without effect, and could not have succeeded, if he had not seized that opportunity, in doing which he had unluckily gone farther than he intended. She smiled, and begged him in future to play such tricks when there was nobody in the carriage. This woman is, however, accused, and I believe justly, of many acts of a most serious complexion. But such is human nature.'

CHAPTER XXIII.

MR MORRIS'S ATTEMPT IN VIENNA TO PROCURE THE LIBERATION OF LA

FAYETTE.--CORRESPONDENCE

WITH MADAME DE STAEL ON THAT
MINISTER.-LETTER
PRINCESS OF FRANCE. AUSTRIAN

LAFAYETTE-ROYAL

ΤΟ

SUBJECT.INTERVIEW WITH THE AUSTRIAN
MADAME DE
NOBILITY.-LEAVES VIENNA FOR BERLIN. CONVERSATION WITH THE
KING OF PRUSSIA.-RESIDENCE IN BRUNSWICK.-RETURNS TO ALTONA.
-LAFAYETTE'S RELEASE FROM OLMUTZ.-GIVEN UP TO THE AMERICAN
CONSUL AT HAMBURG, IN PRESENCE OF MR MORRIS.

WHILE at Vienna, Mr Morris made it a special object of his efforts to procure the liberation of Lafayette, then at Olmutz. He was prompted to this by many motives, though he confessed at the outset, that he had a slender hope of success. He could act under no other authority, than the influence of his own character; and he knew the little weight this must have in a case, which had become so notorious as that of Lafayette, and in which his oppressors had taken their stand before the whole world, on the sole and avowed ground of their sovereign will. To such judges it was idle to speak of justice or clemency, reason or truth. Of this he was convinced, yet the deep interest he took in the misfortunes of the prisoner and his family, not more on his own account, than on that of his country, and of the friends of liberty and humanity everywhere, induced him to make the attempt, which, should it prove abortive, could in no event do any harm. He received two letters from Madame de Staël on this subject, after his arrival in Vienna well suited to kindle enthusiasm in the coldest bosom.

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