United States or Afghanistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We left Posen in the evening, travelled the whole night, and reached Berlin next day at ten o'clock in the evening, taking up our quarters at the Hotel de St Petersbourg. Berlin, Friday, May 29th. Called at the British Embassy, but learned that Lord and Lady Westmoreland were in England. Sir Moses then left his card on Monsieur Fonton, at the Russian Embassy.
We then went to the Russian Embassy, and delivered to Monsieur Fonton his Lordship's letter. That gentleman said he would give Sir Moses a letter to the officer at the frontier, but he had chosen a very unfavourable time for his journey, and had better remain five or six days longer at Berlin. The waters were out, it would be impossible to pass, and he would be detained on the road.
Having acquainted him with the object of his journey to St Petersburg, and mentioned Baron Brunnow's suggestion to facilitate our journey, his Lordship replied that the Russian Ambassador was absent, but that he would give him a letter to Monsieur Fonton, his representative. His Lordship hoped to see him on his return.
Native music, soft and plaintive, sounded, as we would watch Mademoiselles Peiser, Athanaso, Fonton, Tricon, &c., dance the Romaika. Nothing exists, nowadays, of what was so seductive then. The Orient has kept its sunshine and its colouring, but that horrible cosmopolitanism has invaded everything. Everywhere there are stays! and stays steal charm away!
One day we were at his house to dinner, and I then recognised in him a former confidential official of Prince Metternich, who now, with his ribbon of black, red, and gold, followed the current of the age, apparently quite convinced. I made another interesting acquaintance in the person of Herr von Fonton, the Russian state councillor, and attache at the Russian Embassy in Vienna.
Word Of The Day