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I got up and dressed myself in my best, and went in a coach to do my suit to the Princesse de Galitzin, who, was staying at the "Etoile d'Orient." I found her out; she had gone to the Admiralty.
Saturday I had a bad headache, but recovered in the evening; and Monday we dined at Madame Potemkin's, where we met her aunt, a Princess Galitzin, a thin, tall, odd, very clever woman, daughter to that Prince Shuvaloff, to whom Voltaire wrote eternally, and she is imbued with anecdotes of that period, very well bred, and quick in conversation.
Hello, who was familiar with them, only extracted a very mediocre cento; some others, as Prince Galitzin and the Abbé Penaud, have explored her writings with better results and printed some loftier and more impassioned passages. "And this Abbess wrote some of genuine inspiration. "Yes, but all this does not alter the fact that I do not see the book I could write about her," muttered Durtal.
Bennigsen accordingly retired towards Pultusk, Galitzin upon Golymin, both followed by great bodies of the French, and both sustaining with imperturbable patience and gallantry the severity of a march through probably the very worst roads in Europe, and of frequent skirmishes with their pursuers.
Absorbed by their patriotic passions, the Catholic confederates summoned the Mussulmans to their assistance. Prince Galitzin, at the head of a Russian force very inferior to the Ottoman invaders, succeeded in barring their passage; the Turks fell back, invariably beaten by the Russian generals.
For about three hours on the evening of the ninth, Delcasse, of France, and Prince Galitzin of Russia were in conference in the Prince's chamber at the Hotel de Londres. Having changed her hotel and being in a chamber adjoining the Prince's, the Countess had managed to overhear most of this conversation. In her report there were naturally some blanks.
His lieutenants, Galitzin and Michelson, proved more active, and frequently defeated the impostor, though only to find him rising again with new armies as often as the old ones were crushed, like the fabulous giant who sprang up in double form whenever cut in twain. Prince Galitzin defeated him twice, the last time after a furious battle six hours in length.
On our right I saw the Prince Galitzin. From the moment of our entrance he had kept looking at the Countess. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, and abruptly he changed seats with one of the gentlemen at his table. Obviously his view of the Countess' face was not at the angle he wished. Screwing his monocle in his eye, he began to stare pretty consistently. Of course this delighted me.
And how Europe just missed being plunged into a tremendous war I shall tell of in my secret mission that nipped war in the bud. I came near forgetting. For his discretion at Monte Carlo, the Czar rewarded Prince Galitzin by transferring him to a province in Siberia. It was Kaiser weather in Germany. Back from a five months' trip to the Far East, Berlin seemed to me like Heaven.
To me this banquet seemed unendurable, but by way of compensation I had the pleasure, before eating, of going through a fine gallery containing pictures by great masters, mixed, it is true, with some that were rather mediocre. Prince Galitzin, whom age and illness kept to his armchair, had charged his nephew with doing me the honours.
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