_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 upon a small scale which have caused me a certain amount of trouble and weariness and left me rather tired. The Duke of Nassau is a most dismal looking person and I think an unpleasant person in every respect; he looks like a regimental surgeon. The young Duchess has an admirable figure and beautiful arms and complexion, but she has red hair, with the coarse chubby face of a doll; she is simple and very kind. The Hereditary Grand Duke of Russia is better in health but by no means improved in looks. Princess Augustus of Cambridge, who married the Crown Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, exactly resembles what her aunt the Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg must have been at her age. In a few days we shall assume mourning here for the King of Sweden who is certainly dead.
_Berlin, March 24, 1844._--I was in possession of the information which you have sent me[113] with regard to the fact that Charles X. always did justice to M. de Talleyrand in reference to the interview between them during the night of the 16th and 17th of July, 1789. The King had said as much to the old Duchesse de Luynes, and I was with my uncle when she came to repeat the words of Charles X. to him. Since 1830 M. de Vitrolles has become so entirely a stranger to me that I do not quite see how I could ask him to testify to the nature of this interview, though he repeats his facts as he had them from the mouth of Charles X. himself.[114]