Everything secret, hidden, everything that was reflected in the amalgam of time, someday emerges through the chronological patina, albeit not a clear, albeit a blurry outline, but still becomes obvious. Like manuscripts, letters do not burn. Although some of them, by the intent of their authors and addressees, should have turned into ashes ...The Secret Letters of Great People is a collection of correspondence that was not at all intended for outside reading. Nevertheless, due to collisions of fate, and sometimes by intent or negligence, some epistles have reached the modern reader.These are the most curious illustrations of the courtly manners of the 18th-19th centuries, as if the shadows of the past are refilled with life, and the shadows fall on monuments, and monuments come to life.