years of the reign of Louis XV--carried his youthful ardour and dreams
of liberty to America and took part, as did so many of the young
French nobles, in the great struggle for independence that was being
fought out on the other side of the Atlantic. Soon after his return to
France he was named Ambassador to Russia to the court of Catherine II,
and was supposed to have been very much in the good graces of that
very pleasure-loving sovereign. He accompanied her on her famous trip
to the Crimea, arranged for her by her minister and favourite,
Potemkin--when fairy villages, with happy populations singing and
dancing, sprang up in the road wherever she passed as if by
magic--quite dispelling her ideas of the poverty and oppression of
some of her subjects.

Among the portraits there is a miniature of the Empress Catherine. It
is a fine, strongly marked face. She wears a high fur cap--a sort of
military pelisse with lace jabots and diamond star. The son of the
Maréchal, also soldier and courtier, was aide-de-camp to Napoleon and
made almost all his campaigns with him. His description of the Russian
campaign and the retreat of the "Grande Armée" from Moscow is one of
the most graphic and interesting that has ever been written of those
awful days. His memoirs are quite charming. Childhood and early youth
passed in the country in all the agonies of the Terror--simply and
severely brought up in an atmosphere absolutely hostile to any
national or popular movement.

The young student, dreaming of a future and regeneration for France,
arrived one day in Paris, where an unwonted stir denoted that
something was going on. He heard and saw the young Republican General
Bonaparte addressing some regiments. He marked the proud bearing of
the men--even the recruits--and in an explosion of patriotism his