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Foreign Office Of Imperial:
On the way up the slope of Old Istanbul from here one passes the Sublime Porte, which we remember as the Foreign Office of imperial Turkey, in the days of the Sultans. It is now the seat of the provincial and city government. The name, referring to the imposing doorway with its enormous sloping roof, was a popular tag, like France's "Quai d'Orsay."For a few more years a series of men unfit for the office, who were at the mercy of barbarian chiefs in imperial service, were formally invested with imperial authority. One of these chiefs was Ricimer, a Suevian who successively deposed and raised five emperors. Another was Orestes, former equerry of Attila, who in 475 placed the crown upon the head of his own son. Romulus Augustulus, a child of 14.
In 1820 the foreign office charged Pushkin with writing subversive poetry and participating in secret societies and transferred him south to Ekaterinoslav. There he became close to the •younger members of General Rayevsky's family, who helped him discover the poetry of Lord Byron. Pushkin then was assigned to dull work in the Bessarabian capital, Kishinev, and in the summer of 1823, although he dreamed of returning to St. Petersburg, was transferred to Odessa. But he led a romance-filled life, and his love affairs with two married women (including the wife of his superior in the foreign office) occasioned some of his most passionate Lyric poetry.
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