I
flattered myself, that once at a distance from Vienna, all these
vexations, excited no doubt by the French government, would cease;
and that at all events, I might, if it was necessary, quit Gallicia,
and regain Bucharest by Transylvania. The geography of Europe, such
as Napoleon has constituted it, is but too well learned by
misfortune; the turnings which I was obliged to take to avoid his
power were already near two thousand leagues; and now at my
departure even from Vienna I was constrained to borrow the Asiatic
territory to escape from it. I departed, therefore, without having
received my Russian passport, hoping thereby to quiet the uneasiness
which the subaltern police of Vienna appeared to feel about the
presence of a female who was in disgrace with the emperor Napoleon.
I requested one of my friends to rejoin me, by travelling night and
day, as soon as the answer from Russia arrived, and I proceeded on
my road. I did very wrong in taking this step, for at Vienna I was
protected by my friends and by public opinion; I could there easily
address myself to the emperor or to his prime minister: but once
confined to a provincial town, I had only to do with the stupid
wickedness of a subaltern, who wished to make a merit with the
French government, of his conduct towards me; this was the method he
took.
I stopped for some days at Brunn, the capital of Moravia, where an
English colonel, a Mr.
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