This isolation of the rulers of Lombardy had commenced in Milan, but, owing to particular causes, was not positively defined there as it was in Verona.  War was already rageing between the Veronese ladies and the officers of Austria.  According to the Gallic Terpsichorean code, a lady who permits herself to make election of her partners and to reject applicants to the honour of her hand in the dance, when that hand is disengaged, has no just ground of complaint if a glove should smite her cheek.  The Austrians had to endure this sort of rejection in Ballrooms.  On the promenade their features were forgotten.  They bowed to statues.  Now, the officers of Austria who do not belong to a Croat regiment, or to one drawn from any point of the extreme East of the empire, are commonly gentlemanly men; and though they can be vindictive after much irritation, they may claim at least as good a reputation for forbearance in a conquered country as our officers in India.  They are not ill-humoured, and they are not peevishly arrogant, except upon provocation.  The conduct of the tender Italian dames was vexatious.  It was exasperating to these knights of the slumbering sword to hear their native waltzes sounding of exquisite Vienna, while their legs stretched in melancholy inactivity on the Piazza pavement, and their arms encircled no ductile waists.  They tried to despise it more than they disliked it, called their female foes Amazons, and their male by a less complimentary title, and so waited for the patriotic epidemic to pass.

A certain Captain Weisspriess, of the regiment named after a sagacious monarch whose crown was the sole flourishing blossom of diplomacy, particularly distinguished himself by insisting that a lady should remember him in public places.  He was famous for skill with his weapons.  He waltzed admirably; erect as under his Field-Marshal’s eye.  In the language of his brother officers, he was successful; that is, even as God Mars when Bellona does not rage.  Captain Weisspriess (Johann Nepomuk, Freiherr von Scheppenhausen) resembled in appearance one in the Imperial Royal service, a gambling General of Division, for whom Fame had not yet blown her blast.  Rumour declared that they might be relatives; a little-scrupulous society did not hesitate to mention how.  The captain’s moustache was straw-coloured; he wore it beyond the regulation length and caressed it infinitely.  Surmounted by a pair of hot eyes, wavering in their direction, this grand moustache was a feature to be forgotten with difficulty, and Weisspriess was doubtless correct in asserting that his face had endured a slight equal to a buffet.  He stood high and square-shouldered; the flame of the moustache streamed on either side his face in a splendid curve; his vigilant head was loftily posted to detect what he chose to construe as insult, or gather the smiles of approbation, to which, owing to the unerring judgement of the sex, he was more accustomed.  Handsome or not, he enjoyed the privileges of masculine beauty.