Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/109

Rh with many proofs of honour. A few days after his arrival, he was admitted to an audience with the grand-prince, and, what until then had been very unusual, also with the grand-princess Sophia. He stated the wish of Maximilian to enter into closer alliance with the grand-prince, and at the same time to marry a daughter of the latter; and begged, in the event of this request being favourably received, to be allowed to see the princess, and to be informed what would be the amount of her dowry. With respect to religion, she should be entirely free; and it would be permitted her to have a Greek church and its priests. To this the ambassador received for answer, that it was not the custom in Russia to set out the princesses for show, and moreover, that it was unheard of among great monarchs, to fix the dowry prior to marriage; after marriage, the grand-prince would certainly endow his daughter proportionately to her rank. On the point of religion, the ambassador was desired to give a letter of assurance; but to the drawing up of this, he did not consider himself authorized.

Thurn was more fortunate than his predecessor in concluding an alliance between the grand-prince and Maximilian,—the first which had been effected between the Russian and Austrian courts. The letter which Ivan III sent to his new ally on that occasion, and which he had previously confirmed by kissing the cross, no longer exists in the original, but only in a cotemporaneous copy, preserved among the archives at Moscow.

The ambassador, as a proof of the satisfaction of