unbent and gave me a most kindly yet dignified welcome. His manners were
not awful, nor did they inspire one with familiarity, and I thought him
likely to be a good judge of character. When I told him that I had only
gone to Russia to amuse myself and see good company, he immediately
concluded that my aims in coming to Poland were of the same kind; and he
told me that he could introduce me to a large circle. He added that he
should be glad to see me to dinner and supper whenever I had no other
engagements.

He went behind a screen to complete his toilette, and soon appeared in
the uniform of his regiment, with a fair peruke in the style of the late
King Augustus II. He made a collective bow to everyone, and went to see
his wife, who was recovering from a disease which would have proved fatal
if it had not been for the skill of Reimann, a pupil of the great
Boerhaave. The lady came of the now extinct family of Enoff, whose
immense wealth she brought to her husband. When he married her he
abandoned the Maltese Order, of which he had been a knight. He won his
bride by a duel with pistols on horseback. The lady had promised that her
hand should be the conqueror's guerdon, and the prince was so fortunate
as to kill his rival. Of this marriage there issued Prince Adam and a
daughter, now a widow, and known under the name of Lubomirska, but
formerly under that of Strasnikowa, that being the title of the office
her husband held in the royal army.

It was this prince palatine and his brother, the High Chancellor of
Lithuania, who first brought about the Polish troubles. The two brothers
were discontented with their position at the Court where Count Bruhl was
supreme, and put themselves at the head of the plot for dethroning the
king, and for placing on the throne, under Russian protection, their
young nephew, who had originally gone to St. Petersburg as an attache at