Memoirs of the Duchesse De Dino (Afterwards Duchesse de Talleyrand et de Sagan), 1841-1850 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, General
ISBN: 9781508518419
Google: PZ9dAAAAIAAJ
Publisher: W. Heinemann
Published: 1910-01-15T03:11:40+00:00

CHAPTER IV

1844

Vienna, January 4, 1844.—I am packing up, saying goodbye and making the thousand little arrangements which precede departure. I shall leave Vienna very well satisfied with my stay and very grateful for the extreme kindness and courtesy that every one has shown me.

Sagan, January 24, 1844.—The day before yesterday I went out in a sledge to a shooting-party; two hundred and eighty head of game were killed. Yesterday I visited a very fine reformatory which is the chief house of its kind for this part of Silesia. It is in Sagan itself, in a house which was formerly a Jesuit convent. It is a well-arranged establishment conducted upon Christian principles by Baron von Stanger. He is a widower; in grief at the loss of a wife whom he adored, he was impelled by his religious feelings to devote himself to this work of redemption. The clergyman subordinate to him is a converted Jew, a kind of Abbé of Ratisbon, most zealous and conscientious and imbued with the missionary spirit. The results so far obtained are most satisfactory.

My life here is simple, quiet and I trust useful. I have also good news of all to whom I am sincerely attached, and no more physical trouble than I can well bear. To feel oneself entirely useless, to have no serious object in life, or to be paralysed by excessive physical suffering, are I think, the only conditions under which complaints to God are justifiable. I do not mention the pain of surviving those whom one loves whole-heartedly, for that is above all things a matter of feeling, to use the admirable expression of Madame de Maintenon. Besides, the continuous exercise of one's whole energies in relieving others or helping one's kith and kin is a great means of consolation.

Berlin, February 23, 1844.—The sect of the Pietists which is the scourge of Prussia, is doing more harm here than even atheists could produce. There is no doubt that Prussia, like the rest of Europe, is agitated by revolutionary feeling and that Silesia is in particular disturbed by these movements, the consequence of a mixture of populations. These hostilities and rivalries are fomented by the Pietists in a most unchristian way.

I have seen Princess Albert of Prussia again. She looks better since her tour in Italy. I was surprised to see her sprightly and cheerful air, as her position is the more difficult, since her father's death has deprived her of her strongest support.

I hear from Vienna that Madame de Flahaut is patronising the young Hungarians who are causing trouble at the Diet of Pressburg; that she praises their opposition speeches and encourages them to come to her house. At Vienna the authorities are surprised, but their feeling will soon pass that stage. Really, this woman has not a single diplomatic fibre in the whole of her dry anatomy.

Berlin, March 19, 1844.—In honour of the Mecklenburg and Nassau families and of the Hereditary Grand Duke of Russia, we have had some carnival festivities

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