My neighbour at dinner was the French ambassador.  Wishing to drink deeply, after the Russian fashion, and thinking the Hungarian wine as innocent as champagne, he drank so bravely that at the end of dinner he had lost the use of his legs.  Count Orloff made him drink still more, and then he fell asleep and was laid on a bed.

The gaiety of the meal gave me some idea of Russian wit.  I did not understand the language, so M. Zinowieff translated the curious sallies to me while the applause they had raised was still resounding.

Melissino rose to his feet, holding a large goblet full of Hungarian wine in his hand.  There was a general silence to listen to him.  He drank the health of General Orloff in these words: 

“May you die when you become rich.”

The applause was general, for the allusion was to the unbounded generosity of Orloff.  The general’s reply struck me as better still, but it was equally rugged in character.  He, too, took a full cup, and turning to Melissino, said,

“May you never die till I slay you!”

The applause was furious, for he was their host and their general.

The Russian wit is of the energetic kind, devoid of grace; all they care about is directness and vigour.

Voltaire had just sent the empress his “Philosophy of History,” which he had written for her and dedicated to her.  A month after, an edition of three thousand copies came by sea, and was sold out in a week, for all the Russians who knew a little French were eager to possess a copy of the work.  The leaders of the Voltaireans were two noblemen, named, respectively, Stroganoff and Schuvaloff.  I have seen verses written by the former of these as good as Voltaire’s own verses, and twenty years later I saw an ode by the latter of which Voltaire would not have been ashamed, but the subject was ill chosen; for it treated of the death of the great philosopher who had so studiously avoided using his pen on melancholy themes.  In those days all Russians with any pretensions to literature read nothing but Voltaire, and when they had read all his writings they thought themselves as wise as their master.  To me they seemed pigmies mimicking a giant.  I told them that they ought to read all the books from which Voltaire had drawn his immense learning, and then, perhaps, they might become as wise as he.  I remember the saying of a wise man at Rome:  “Beware of the man of one book.”  I wonder whether the Russians are more profound now; but that is a question I cannot answer.  At Dresden I knew Prince Biloselski, who was on his way back to Russia after having been ambassador at Turin.  He was the author of an admirable world on metaphysics, and the analysis of the soul and reason.

Count Panin was the tutor of Paul Petrovitch, heir-presumptive to the throne.  The young prince had a severe master, and dared not even applaud an air at the opera unless he first received permission to do so from his mentor.