Nothing could exceed the charm of her conversation or her grace, ease, and tact in society. She had a nice and accurate judgement, and an exquisite taste in the choice of her associates and friends; but though taking an ardent pleasure in agreeableness, and peculiarly susceptible of being bored, she was not fastidious, full of politeness and good breeding, and possessed the faculty of turning every one to account, and eliciting something either of entertainment or information from the least important of her acquaintance. It has been the fashion here, and the habit of the vulgar and ignorant press, to stigmatise Madame de Lieven as a mischievous intriguer, who was constantly occupied in schemes and designs hostile to the interests of our country. I firmly believe such charges to be utterly unfounded. She had resided for above twenty years, the happiest of her life, in England, and had imbibed a deep attachment to the country, where she had formed many more intimacies and friendships than she possessed anywhere else, and to the last day of her life she continued to cherish the remembrance of her past connexion, to cultivate the society of English people, and to evince without disguise her predilection for their country. She had never lived much in Russia, her connexion with it had been completely dissolved, and all she retained of it was a respectful attachment to the Imperial family, together with certain sympathies and feelings of loyalty for her native country and her Sovereign which it would have been unnatural and discreditable to disavow. Her well-known correspondence with the Imperial Court was only caused by the natural anxiety of those great persons to be kept _au courant_ of social and political affairs by such an accomplished correspondent, but I do not believe she was ever employed by them in any business or any political design; on the contrary, she was rather distrusted and out of favour with them, on account of her being so denaturalised and for her ardent affection for England and the English. Russia was the country of her birth, France the country of her adopted abode, but England was the country of her predilection. With this cosmopolite character she dreaded everything which might produce hostile collision between any two of these countries. She was greatly annoyed when the question of the Spanish marriages embittered the relations between France and England, but infinitely more so at the Turkish quarrel, and the war which it produced. Those who fulminated against her intrigues were, as I believe, provoked at the efforts she made, so far as she had any power or influence, to bring about the restoration of peace, an unpardonable offence in the eyes of all who were bent on the continuation of the war. She lived to see peace restored, and closed her eyes almost at the moment that the last seal was put to it by the Conference of Paris. Her last illness was sudden and short. Her health had always been delicate, and she was very nervous about herself; an attack of bronchitis brought on fever, which rapidly consumed her strength, and brought her, fully conscious, within sight of death; that consummation, which at a distance she had always dreaded, she saw arrive with perfect calmness and resignation, and all the virtues and qualities for which the smallest credit was given her seem to have shone forth with unexpected lustre on her deathbed. Her faculties were bright and unclouded to the last, her courage and presence of mind were unshaken, she evinced a tender consideration for the feelings of those who were lamenting around her bed, and she complied with the religious obligations prescribed by the Church of which she was a member with a devotion the sincerity of which we have no right to question. She made her son Paul and Guizot leave her room a few hours before she died, that they might be spared the agony of witnessing her actual dissolution, and only three or four hours before the supreme moment, she mustered strength to write a note in pencil to Guizot with these words: _'Merci pour vingt années d'amitié et de bonheur. Ne m'oubliez pas, adieu, adieu!'_ It was given to him after her death.