Some of the Netherlanders alone frequently threw off the constraint which
fettered all, and one even turned with the gayest ease from one person to
another. This was Baron Malfalconnet, one of the Emperor's major-domos.
He was permitted to do what no one else ventured, for his cheerfulness
and wit, his gift of story-telling, and sharp tongue often succeeded in
dispelling the clouds of melancholy from the brow of his imperial master.

At Wolf's entrance the baron greeted him with merry banter, and then
whispered to him that the regent was expecting him in her private room,
where the leaders of the newly arrived musicians had already gone. As
Wolf belonged to the "elect," he would conduct him to her Majesty before
"the called" who were here in the waiting room.

As he spoke he delivered him to the Emperor's confidential secretary,
Gastelu, whom Wolf had often aided in the translation of German letters,
and the latter ushered him into the Queen's reception room.

It was the royal lady's sleeping apartment, a moderately wide, unusually
deep chamber, looking out upon the Haidplatz. The walls were hung with
Flanders Gobelin tapestry, whose coloured pictures represented woodland
landscapes and hunters. The Queen's bed stood halfway down the long wall
at the right.

Little could be seen of her person, for heavy gold-embroidered damask
curtains hung around the wide, lofty bedstead, falling from the canopy
projecting, rootlike, above the top, where gilded child genii bore a
royal crown. On the side toward the room the curtains were drawn back
far enough to allow those who were permitted to approach the regent to
see her head and the upper portion of her body, which was wrapped in an