No. 2
Shooting over the battlefield of Jena.—The presence of the Emperor Alexander on this occasion was considered a great affront to his recent ally, the King of Prussia, and is severely commented on by Von Moltke in one of his Essays. In fairness to Alexander, we must remember that their host, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, had married his sister. Von Moltke, by the way, speaks of hares forming the sport in question, but Savary of a second battle of Jena fought against the partridges. The fact seems to be that all kinds of game, including stags and deer, were driven by the beaters to the royal sportsmen in their huts, and the Emperor Alexander, albeit short-sighted, succeeded in killing a stag, at eight feet distance, at the first shot.
The Weimar ball.—This followed the Jena shoot, and the dancing lasted all night. The Russian courtiers were scandalised at their Emperor dancing, but while he was present the dancing was conventional enough, consisting of promenading two and two to the strains of a Polish march. “Imperial Waltz, imported from the Rhine,” was already the rage in Germany, and Napoleon, in order to be more worthy of his Austrian princess, tried next year to master this new science of tactics, but after a trial with the Princess Stephanie, the lady declared that her pupil should always give lessons, and never receive them. He was rather more successful at billiards, pursued under the same praiseworthy incentive.
A few trifling ailments.—Mainly a fearful nightmare; a new experience, in which he imagines his vitals torn out by a bear. “Significant of much!” As when also the Russian Emperor finds himself without a sword and accepts that of Napoleon as a gift: and when, on the last night, the latter orders his comedians to play “Bajazet,”—little thinking the appointed Tamerlane was by his side.