while I, on the other hand, requested that an ambassador should be sent with me to the emperor. That was done,[1] and I trust that now you will place more confidence in my integrity.”
Hereupon he brought forward his proposals, and begged that they might be kept secret. The first point was, if the grand-prince were not indisposed, to unite in wedlock one of his princesses to the margrave Albert of Baden, the emperor’s sister’s son; the emperor in that case would forward the matter, and enter into an alliance of love and friendship with the grand-prince.[2] Such an unexpected desire demanded consideration: the grand-prince sent answer to the ambassador, through the diak Feodor Kirizin, that he would explain himself thereupon through a special ambassador.
Poppel, at his second audience, expressed a wish to be allowed to see the princess who was desired in marriage for the margrave of Baden: to which he received for answer,—“that it was not the custom in Russia to let the daughter be seen before the befitting time.”
Poppel now begged a third audience, at which he stated, that he had understood that an ambassador
- ↑ The ambassador sent by the grand-prince with Poppel was Jurj Trachaniota, or, as Müller calls him, Trachaniotton, the well-known Greek, who had arrived in Russia on the marriage of the grand-prince with the Greek princess Sophia, and was frequently employed in affairs demanding talent and subtlety.—Adelung’s note.
- ↑ Müller on this observes:—“Thus at this time they sought to strengthen the power of the German empire by an alliance with Russia, notwithstanding the remoteness of these countries, a fact of which history gives many proofs.”—Adelung’s note.
