dinner or supper on a particular day; it was understood that once admitted, you were always welcome; he frequently knew not half the persons who dined at his table:  but this luxurious hospitality pleased him like any other kind of magnificence.  The same practice prevails in many other houses at Petersburg; it is natural to conclude from that, that what we call in France the pleasures of conversation cannot be there met with:  the company is much too numerous to allow a conversation of any interest even to be kept up in it.  In the best society the most perfect good manners prevail, but there is neither sufficient information among the nobility, nor sufficient confidence among persons living habitually under the influence of a despotic court and government, to allow them to know any thing of the charms of intimacy.  The greater part of the great noblemen of Russia express themselves with so much elegance and propriety, that one frequently deceives one’s self at the outset about the degree of wit and acquirements of those with whom you are conversing.  The debut is almost always that of a gentleman or lady of fine understanding:  but sometimes also, in the long run, you discover nothing but the debut.  They are not accustomed in Russia to speak from the bottom of their heart or understanding; they had in former times such fear of their masters, that they have not yet been able to accustom themselves to that wise freedom, for which they are indebted to the character of Alexander.

Some Russian gentlemen have tried to distinguish themselves in literature, and have given proofs of considerable talent in this career; but knowledge is not yet sufficiently diffused to create a public judgment formed by individual opinions.  The character of the Russians is too passionate to allow them to like ideas in the least degree abstract; it is by facts only that they are amused; they have not yet had time or inclination to reduce facts to general ideas.  In addition, every significant idea is always more or less dangerous, in the midst of a court where mutual observation, and more frequently envy are the predominant feelings.

The silence of the East is here transformed into amiable words, but which generally never penetrate beyond the surface.  One feels pleasure for a moment in this brilliant atmosphere, which is an agreeable dissipation of life; but in the long run no information is acquired in it, no faculties are developed in it, and men who pass their life in this manner never acquire any capacity for study or business.  Far otherwise was it with the society of Paris; there we have seen men whose characters have been entirely formed by the lively or serious conversation to which the intercourse between the nobility and men of letters gave birth.

CHAPTER 17.

The Imperial Family.