All along the facing of her gown were Orders and little things of metal; a dozen Orders, and as many Portraits of saints, of relics and the like; so that when she walked, it was with a jingling, as if you heard a mule with bells to its harness."-- Poor little Czarina; shifty nutbrown fellow-creature, strangely chased about from the bottom to the top of this world; it is evident she does not succeed at Queen Sophie Dorothee's Court!-- "The Czar, on the other hand, was very tall, and might be called handsome," continues Wilhelmina: "his countenance was beautiful, but had something of savage in it which put you in fear." Partly a kind of Milton's-Devil physiognomy?
The Portraits give it rather so.

Archangel not quite ruined, yet in sadly ruinous condition; its heroism so bemired,--with a turn for strong drink, too, at times! A physiognomy to make one reflect.

"His dress was of sailor fashion, coat, altogether plain." "The Czarina, who spoke German very ill herself, and did not understand well what the Queen said, beckoned to her Fool to come near,"-- a poor female creature, who had once been a Princess Galitzin, but having got into mischief, had been excused to the Czar by her high relations as mad, and saved from death or Siberia, into her present strange harbor of refuge.

With her the Czarina talked in unknown Russ, evidently "laughing much and loud," till Supper was announced.
"At table," continues Wilhelmina, "the Czar placed himself beside the Queen.

It is understood this Prince was attempted with poison in his youth, and that something of it had settled on his nerves ever after.
One thing is certain, there took him very often a sort of convulsion, like Tic or St.-Vitus, which it was beyond his power to control.