During the first years of my ministry I frequently remarked in the course of similar conversation that the Princess took pleasure in provoking my patriotic susceptibility by playful criticism of persons and matters.

At that ball at Versailles Queen Victoria spoke to me in German.  She gave me the impression of beholding in me a noteworthy but unsympathetic personality, but still her tone of voice was without that touch of ironical superiority that I thought I detected in Prince Albert’s.  She continued to be amiable and courteous like one unwilling to treat an eccentric fellow in an unfriendly way.

In comparison with Berlin it seemed a curious arrangement to me that at supper the company ate in three classes, with gradations in the menu, and that such guests as were to sup at all were assured of this by having a ticket bearing a number handed to them as they entered.  The tickets of the first class also bore the name of the lady presiding at the table to which they referred.  These tables were arranged to accommodate fifteen or twenty.  On entering I received one of these tickets for Countess Walewska’s table and later on in the ball-room two more from two other lady patronesses of diplomacy and of the Court.  No exact plan for placing the guests had therefore been made out.  I chose the table of Countess Walewska, to whose department I belonged as a foreign diplomatist.  On the way to the room in question I came across a Prussian officer in the uniform of an infantry regiment of the guard, accompanied by a French lady; he was engaged in an animated dispute with one of the imperial household stewards who would not allow either of them to pass, not being provided with tickets.  After the officer, in answer to my inquiries, had explained the matter and indicated the lady as a duchess bearing an Italian title of the First Empire, I told the court official that I had the gentleman’s ticket, and gave him one of mine.  Now, however, the official would not allow the lady to pass and I therefore gave the officer my second ticket for his duchess.  The official then said significantly to me:  “Mais vous ne passerez pas sans carte.”  On my showing him the third, he made a face of astonishment and allowed all three of us to pass.  I recommended my two proteges not to sit down at the tables indicated on the tickets, but to try and find seats elsewhere; nor did any complaints concerning my distribution of tickets ever come to my ears.  The want of organization was so great that our table was not fully occupied, a fact due to the absence of any understanding among the dames patronesses.  Old Prince Pueckler had either received no ticket or had been unable to find his table; after he had turned to me, whom he knew by sight, he was invited by Countess Walewska to take one of the seats that had remained empty.  The supper, in spite of the triple division, was neither materially nor as regards its preparation upon a level with what is done in Berlin at similar crowded festivities; the waiting only was efficient and prompt.