Sticky Fingers Cause Etiquette Breach

 

Public Domain image of Count Paul Demidoff, Prince of San Donato

A Strict Follower of Etiquette

An amusing chapter of Laferrière’s forthcoming memoirs, according to the Paris correspondent of Appleton’s Journal, is devoted to a Russian celebrity at the Court of the late Emperor Nicholas, the Count Paul Demidoff. A young attaché to one ot the embassies, now a distinguished diplomatist, was invited to dine with Count Demidoff. On the return of the company to the salon, groups were formed here and there, and when the coffee was handed round, the young attache, carried away by the interest of the conversation in which he was engaged, took a lump of sugar from the sugar bowl with his fingers, when the servant presented the tray to him. 

Count Demidoff, indignant at this breach of etiquette, signed to the lackey to throw the rest of the contents of the sugar-bowl out of the window. The lesson was a severe one, and struck dumb those who witnessed it. But the spirituelle young offender, while understanding perfectly the insult intended, preserved an imperturbable calmness. He slowly drained the contents of his cup, and, walking deliberately to the window, he fixed his eyes on M. Demidoff and tossed carelessly into the street the cup and saucer of priceless Sèvres and the gold spoon. “I did not know that such was the usage,” he said to the Count. And then he recommended his conversation with an air of perfect nonchalance. — London Journal, 1875

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