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 nature; and his smiling smoothness and dignified courtesy were distrusted. Privately much was being said about his ambition, his passion, and his vengeance on those who either thoughtlessly or purposely dared to vex him in any of his schemes; but publicly the greatest respect was displayed for the Count, who occupied the foremost place among the Prague nobles, not merely in wealth, but above all in being the most favored at the Emperor’s court.

Each of the gilded carriages, ornamented with a great escutcheon on its door, was preceded either by two running footmen in livery or by two mounted hunters with flaring torches. The torches, however, were not for mere show. In the year 1772 only the main streets of Prague were lighted and paved; the rest, especially in spring, looked more like rural roads full of mud-pools and stony ponds than like the public streets of the most famous city of a kingdom renowned in history, and in which, only a few decades previously, foreign princes had bought homes in order