purposes. Indeed, it is certain, although he vouchsafed none of it
to me, that this cold and stolid politician possesses to a great
degree the art of ingratiation, and can be all things to all men.
Hence there has probably sprung up the idle legend that in private
life he is a gross romping voluptuary. Nothing, at least, can well
be more surprising than the terms of his connection with the
Princess. Older than her husband, certainly uglier, and, according
to the feeble ideas common among women, in every particular less
pleasing, he has not only seized the complete command of all her
thought and action, but has imposed on her in public a humiliating
part. I do not here refer to the complete sacrifice of every rag of
her reputation; for to many women these extremities are in
themselves attractive. But there is about the court a certain lady
of a dishevelled reputation, a Countess von Rosen, wife or widow of
a cloudy count, no longer in her second youth, and already bereft of
some of her attractions, who unequivocally occupies the station of
the Baron's mistress. I had thought, at first, that she was but a
hired accomplice, a mere blind or buffer for the more important
sinner. A few hours' acquaintance with Madame von Rosen for ever
dispelled the illusion. She is one rather to make than to prevent a
scandal, and she values none of those bribes - money, honours, or
employment - with which the situation might be gilded. Indeed, as a
person frankly bad, she pleased me, in the court of Grunewald, like
a piece of nature.

The power of this man over the Princess is, therefore, without
bounds. She has sacrificed to the adoration with which he has
inspired her not only her marriage vow and every shred of public
decency, but that vice of jealousy which is so much dearer to the
female sex than either intrinsic honour or outward consideration.