George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[463] Lady of Honor to the Co-Regentess. We found her living in a fine apartment up two pair of stairs, and her room was quite brilliant when we entered it, with the court dresses of those persons, chiefly foreigners, who had come to pay the customary attention to her. The British Minister presented us to her,. . . . but we had hardly spoken to her and two or three other persons whom we knew, before she went to perform her own duties to the Princess — who now occupies the place of Queen-and left us to follow at our leisure. We did so very soon,. . . . and were somewhat surprised that we had another pair of stairs to ascend, which brought us, in fact, to the third story, where, I observe, a very large proportion of the most considerable people here live. . . . .

When we got there we found a magnificent suite of rooms, which had been built for state occasions in the time of the Polish kings; and, passing to one extremity of it, all of us, both ladies and gentlemen, to the number of thirty or forty, who had not yet been presented to the princesses and royal family, together with the foreign ministers who were to present us, were carried into a large room with a dais in it, but no throne or seats, the whole hung with velvet. There we were arranged in a semicircle, the ladies on one side, the gentlemen on the other. By the time this was well done the royal family appeared, the King, eighty years old, and his brother, Prince Maximilian, seventy-six, dressed in scarlet, and covered—especially the King—with diamonds, of which this family has an extraordinary quantity of extraordinary brilliancy, one in the King's hat being green and unique. The two princes — the Regent and his brother John--were dressed in military uniform, and the four princesses-Augusta, the daughter of the late King, Amelia, the daughter of Maximilian, the wife of the Regent, and the wife of Prince Maxwere splendidly dressed, and had a waste of diamonds, especially the Princess Augusta.

The wife of Prince Max is a princess of Lucca, and is thirty-two years old. . . . When she married him she was twenty-two and he sixty-six, and she is said to give as a reason for her consent, that she had rather be the wife of a kind, respectable man three times as old as herself, than live with a mother who beat her. The royal party was certainly very splendid, and amused us as a show while they walked round, and with great kindness and some tact spoke to each of us. When this was over—which lasted perhaps half an hourthe King and the family bowed civilly to us all and went out, the first act of the evenings ceremonies being over.