FORE:Besides the conflict between the new and old ideas, the extravagant hopes of some and the natural misgivings of others, the court was disturbed by the quarrels and jealousies of many of the great nobles who, not contented with occupying the posts they held, aimed at making them hereditary in their families.His career, however, was even now beginning; and not long after Trzia, in the height of her beauty and power with Paris at her feet, rejected his love-making but accepted his friendship, he was sent to Italy and began the series of triumphs which were to raise him to the throne of France.
FORE:Amongst Lisettes new Russian friends was the beautiful Princesse Dolgorouki, with whom Count Cobentzel was hopelessly in love; but as Lisette observed, her indifference was not to be wondered at, for Cobentzel was fifty and very ugly; and Potemkin had been in love with her. Besides all his other gifts he was extremely handsome and charming, and his generosity and magnificence were unparalleled.She was as happy at Vienna as she could be [121] anywhere under the circumstances. During the winter she had the most brilliant society in Europe, and for the summer she had taken a little house at Sch?nbrunn, near the Polignac, in a lovely situation, to which she always retired when Vienna became too hot, and where she took long solitary walks by the Danube, or sat and sketched under the trees.