"I will lay and bet, gentlemen," said Talleyrand, "that you cannot, with
all your united wits, guess the grand subject of my conversation with the
good Baron Edelsheim." Without waiting for an answer, he continued: "As
the Baron is a much older and more experienced traveller than myself, I
asked him which, of all the countries he had visited, could boast the
prettiest and kindest women. His reply was really very instructive, and
it would be a great pity if justice were not done to his merit by its
publicity."

Here the Baron, red as a turkey-cock and trembling with anger,
interrupted. "His Excellency," said he, "is to-night in a humour to
joke; what we spoke of had nothing to do with women."

"Nor with men, either," retorted Talleyrand, going away.

This anecdote, Baron Dahlberg, the Minister of the Elector of Baden to
our Court, had the ingenuity to relate at Madame Chapui's as an evidence
of Edelsheim's intimacy with Talleyrand; only he left out the latter
part, and forgot to mention the bad grace with which this impertinence of
Talleyrand was received; but this defect of memory Count von Beust, the
envoy of the Elector Arch-Chancellor, kindly supplied.

Baron Edelsheim is a great amateur of knighthoods. On days of great
festivities his face is, as it were, illuminated with the lustre of his
stars; and the crosses on his coat conceal almost its original colour.
Every petty Prince of Germany has dubbed him a chevalier; but Emperors
and Kings have not been so unanimous in distinguishing his desert, or in
satisfying his desires.