A German Pompadour / Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Grävenitz, Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg

WILHELMINE REICHSGRÄFIN VON GRÄVENITZ.
From a Portrait in the collection of Frau Anna Remshardt at Heilbronn.





'The Past that is not overpast,
But present here.'
In a dusty, time-soiled packet of legal papers which had lain untouched for nigh upon two hundred years, the extraordinary history of Wilhelmine von Grävenitz is set forth in all the colourless reticence of official documents. And yet something of the thrill of the superstitious fear, and the virtuous disapproval of the lawyers who composed these writings, pierces through the stilted phrases. Like a faint fragrance of faded rose-leaves, a breath of this woman's charm seems to cling and elusively to peep out of the curt record of her crimes. Enough at least to incite the wanderer in History's byways to a further study of this potent German forerunner of the Pompadour.