CHAPTER XIV
IN the autumn of 1851 the refugees in London, especially the Germans, found a common meeting-place in the drawing-room of a born aristocrat, the Baroness von Brüning, née Princess Lieven, from one of the German provinces of Russia. She was then a little more than thirty years old; not exactly beautiful, but of an open, agreeable, winning expression of face, fine manners and a stimulating gift of conversation. How, with her aristocratic birth and social position, she had dropped into the democratic current I do not know. Probably the reports of the struggles for liberty in Western Europe, which crossed the Russian frontier, had inflamed her imagination, and her vivacious nature had indulged itself in incautious utterances against the despotic rule of the Emperor Nicholas. In short, she found life in Russia intolerable, or, may be, she was in danger of arrest had she not left her native country. For some time she lived in Germany and in Switzerland, and there became acquainted with various liberal leaders. She had also corresponded with Frau Kinkel and contributed a portion of the money which was employed in Kinkel's liberation. But on the European continent she believed herself constantly pursued by Russian influences; and no doubt the police, at least in Germany, made itself quite disagreeable to her. So she sought at last refuge on English soil, and in order to be in constant contact with persons of her own way of thinking she settled down in the midst of the Colony of German refugees in the suburb of St. John's Wood. She was most cordially received by the
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