ceding years (no change whatever having taken place since), to 595,776,310 roubles. Ten millions of notes, of five and ten roubles each, were printed, which form a fund, simply, as a means of exchanging them for notes of a higher value, or for those that are worn out.

The transactions of the paper currency of the country are carried on at St. Petersburgh by a bank, called the "Assignatsionnoï Bank," one of the numerous fine buildings of that capital, and really remarkable for the grandeur and severity of its architecture, situated in a street called the Bolchaya Sadovaya, not far from the Russian shops, hereafter to be described.

According to the tables published by Weydemeyer, the total revenue of Russia amounts to 450,000,000 roubles paper money value. From documents, still more authentic, the public debt in January 1827, the year in which I visited St. Petersburgh, including the sum remaining due to Holland, the "dettes inférieures à terme," and the "dettes à rentes perpetuelles," in gold, silver, and paper currency, at six and five per cents. appears to have been, as follows:

Debt to Holland, 46,100,000 florins.

National Debt.

In Gold,

In Silver,

14,220 roubles. 83,143,731

In Bank Notes, 264,496,304

The management of the public debt is confided to a commission d'amortissement, who, every year, by their purchases redeem a certain quantity of the public debt. The amount of that redemption in the course of 1826 in the five and six per cents. was as follows:

By these several payments the public debt was reduced to the amount before quoted. The punctuality of the Russian Government toward its public creditors is universally acknowledged; and its conduct in regard to the ancient debt contracted with Holland, to which all arrears of interest that accrued during the occupation of that country by the enemy of Russia were liquidated, has materially tended to strengthen that confidence in its funds which keeps their value at their present steady rate. I have heard in the course of the last winter, a diplomatic character of the first respectability, unconnected with Russia, say that he considered the Russian funds equal in security to those of England, and superior to them in the advantage of a larger interest.

There are in St. Petersburgh other public banks connected with the Department of Finance, the operations of which necessarily and materially influence the state of the currency and the public revenue of the country. Intrinsically, however, those institutions are intended more for the advantage and convenience of private individuals than for any direct public purpose. These are the Loan Bank and the Commercial Bank. Their purport is sufficiently indicated by their titles. Their operations are extensive. The capital of the Commercial Bank is 30,000,000 roubles, but as it receives deposits, bearing interest, in aid of its funds, with which it carries on the several commercial operations of lending money, discounting bills, and mortgaging or anticipating payments on goods, &c., the disposable capital is always much more considerable: up to January 1827, that capital amounted to 256,498,355 roubles, or about 11,000,000 sterling. The net profit of this bank in 1826 amounted to 2,216,588 roubles, 51 kopeeks. That of the Loan Bank for the same year was 2,080,722 roubles, 29 kopeeks.

There is only another banking establishment which I

noticed in St. Petersburgh, that requires to be mentioned before I conclude my observations on the commercial institutions of that capital. This is the Lombard, or Mont de Pietè, an establishment similar to that which was attempted to be formed in London a few years ago, and in which valuable goods, merchandise, trinkets, jewels, &c., may be deposited by all classes of persons for corresponding loans of money, to any amount above ten roubles, bearing an interest of six per cent. The resources of this powerful engine have been placed in the hands of the Empress-mother; and it is with them that she is enabled to support the Great Foundling Hospitals of St. Petersburgh and Moscow, as well as the numerous useful institutions connected with those hospitals. The Lombard also receives deposits of money for an indefinite time, for which it pays a yearly interest of five per cent. The floating or disposable capital of this branch is about 50,000,000 roubles. The building is perhaps one of the least showy in St. Petersburgh, and the access, and entrance to it, are by no means in accordance with the more prevalent practice of that capital, of placing all public institutions in large edifices having a striking exterior.

CHAPTER XIII.

PICTURE OF ST. PETERSBURGH.

INTRODUCTION TO COURT.

with His present Majesty and with the Empress-mother. - Ton of Society. The fair Sex. - Opinion of a modern French traveller. -Soirées. Balls. Internal arrangement of the Palaces and other Houses of the Nobility.-Extravagant number of Servants and attendants. - Principal Palaces of Noblemen at St. PetersFêtes priées and "at homes." - Visiting.-Birth-days. -Onomastic days. - Court Fêtes.

burgh.

Bal Masquè at the Taurida .Dinners. Form and style of

a Russian Dinner in the houses of the great.

- English Sauce and

Russian Cookery. - Delicious Fish. — Introduction of the English fashion of Dining. Mansion of Count Stanislaus Potocki.

Dining among the English at St. Petersburgh. "Conversazioni." -Cards.- La Mouche. Splendour and pomp of the Russian Nobility in former times. Grande Societé at the Palace of the late Great Chamberlain, Naryschkine. His fortune, death, embalm

The English Library. The Tiers The Lounge in the Nevskoï Prospekt,

the Regent-Street of St. Petersburgh. - Equipages and Pedestrians. The English and the Russian Quays. The Summer Gardens, and its magnificent railing.

"BUT trève to all this learning," said a lively young Russian Officer to me one day, whom I had been en

tertaining with a long and prosing account (as I fear my readers, too, will find it) of what I had seen in his favourite city. "Trève to all this learning, et allons voir les lions, as one of your adopted countrymen, who came over to see the coronation, said to a lady in his best French à l'Anglaise" and so say I too; for I fear I am tiring out even the most patient and the gravest of my readers, with my endless list of buildings and institutions.

It is not one of the least advantages of an introduction to Court at home, that it facilitates a similar ceremony abroad. Some imagine that it is ostentation alone which leads a traveller entitled either by his rank, his station, his character in society, or by courtesy, to such a distinction, to wish for a presentation at Court. This may be true in some respects in this country, where, with the exception of exalted persons, the majority of foreigners who have the honour of paying their homage to the Sovereign, in common with his Majesty's subjects, go through the ceremony of appearing in the Royal presence in less than the quarter of a minute, and have no opportunity of expressing more than a mute acknowledgment of their respect. But it is a very different thing abroad. The Sovereign condescends to address every stranger who is presented, frequently discourses with him on interesting topics, a circumstance the more flattering to the individual thus honoured, as the conversation is generally directed to subjects with which he is most familiar. Such is the practice followed by the Emperor and the two Empresses at the Court of St. Petersburgh; and the well-known affability and gracious courtesy with which they receive strangers, render it natural for a traveller to wish for the enjoyment of that distinction. The ceremonials of an introduction at Court in St. Petersburgh are very different