Use next made full statement of her case to the Duchess of Zell; and that lady, deeming the case one of peculiar hardship, and the penalty inflicted on a giddy girl too unmeasured for the pardonable offence of amusing an old prince who encouraged her to the task, after much consideration, due weighing of the statement, and befitting inquiry, took the offender into her own service, and gave to the exiled Hanoverian a refuge, asylum, and employment in Zell.
These are but small politics, but they illustrate the nature of things as they then existed at little German courts. They had, moreover, no small influence on the happiness of Sophia Dorothea. The Countess von Platen was enraged that the mother of that princess should have dared to give a home to one whom she had condemned to be homeless; and she in consequence is suspected of having been fired with the more satanic zeal to make desolate the home of the young wife. She adopted the most efficient means to arrive at such an end. Her wicked zeal was stimulated by the undisguised contempt with which Sophia Dorothea treated her on all public occasions. She urged her sister, Madame von Busche, to recover her power over George Louis. Madame von Busche embraced with alacrity the mission with which she was charged, again to throw such meshes of fascination as she was possessed of around the heart of the not over-susceptible prince. But George Louis stolidly refused to be charmed, and Madame von Busche gave up the attempt in a sort of offended despair. Her sister, like a true genius, fertile in expedients, and prepared for every emergency, bethought herself of a simple circumstance, whereby she hoped to attain her ends. She remembered that George Louis, though short himself of stature, had a predilection for tall women. At the next fête at which he was present at the mansion of Madame von Platen, he was enchanted by a majestic young lady, with a name almost as long as her person—it was Ermengarda Melusina von der Schulenburg.
She was more shrewd than witty, this ‘tall mawkin,’ as the Electress Sophia once called the lofty Ermengarda; and, as George Louis was neither witty himself, nor much cared for wit in others, she was the better enabled to establish herself in the most worthless of hearts. This was the work of the countess, who saw in the tender blue eyes, the really fine features, the imposing figure, and the nineteen years of Ermengarda, means to an end. When the countess hinted at the distinction that was within reach of her, the tall beauty is said to have blushed and hesitated, and then to have yielded herself with alacrity to the glittering circumstance. She and the prince first met on his return from a campaign in Hungary. He was at once subjected to her magic influences. She was an inimitable flatterer, and in this way she fooled her victim to ‘the very top of his bent.’ She exquisitely cajoled him, and with exquisite carelessness did he surrender himself to be cajoled. Gradually, by watching his inclinations, anticipating his wishes, admiring even his coarseness, and lauding it as candour, she so won upon the lazily excited feelings of George Louis that he began to think her presence indispensable to his well-being. If he hunted, she was in the field, the nearest to his saddle-bow. If he went out to walk alone, he invariably fell in with Ermengarda. At the court theatre, when he was present, the next conspicuous object was the towering von der Schulenburg, ‘in all her diamonds,’ beneath the glare of which, and the blazing impudence of their wearer, the modest Sophia Dorothea was almost extinguished. Ermengarda was speedily established at Hanover, as hof-dame, or lady-in-waiting.
Madame von Platen had announced a festival, to be celebrated at her mansion, which was to surpass in splendour anything that had ever been witnessed by the existing generation. The occasion was the second marriage of her sister, Madame von Busche, who had worried the poor ex-tutor of George Louis into the grave, with General Weyhe, a gallant soldier, equal, it would seem, to any feat of daring. Whenever the Countess von Platen designed to appear with more than ordinary brilliancy in her own person, she was accustomed to indulge in the extravagant luxury of a milk bath; and it was added by the satirical or the scandalous, that the milk which had just lent softness to her skin was charitably distributed among the poor of the district wherein she occasionally affected to play the character of Dorcas.
The fête and the giver of it were not only to be of a splendour that had never been equalled, but George Louis had promised to grace it with his presence, and had even pledged himself to ‘walk a measure’ with the irresistible Ermengarda Melusina von der Schulenburg. Madame von Platen thought that her cup of joy and pride and revenge would be complete and full to the brim if she could succeed in bringing Sophia Dorothea to the misery of witnessing a spectacle, the only true significance of which was, that the faithless George Louis publicly acknowledged the gigantic Ermengarda for his ‘favourite.’
More activity was employed to encompass the desired end than if the aim in view had been one of good purpose. It so far succeeded that Sophia Dorothea intimated her intention of being present at the festival given by the Countess von Platen; and when the latter lady received the desired and welcome intelligence she was conscious of an enjoyment that seemed to her an antepast of Paradise.
The eventful night at length arrived. The bride had exchanged rings with the bridegroom, congratulations had been duly paid, the floor was ready for the dancers, and nothing lacked but the presence of Sophia Dorothea. There walked the proudly eminent von der Schulenburg, looking blandly down upon George Louis, who held her by the hand; and there stood the impatient von Platen, eager that the wife of that light-o’-love cavalier should arrive and be crushed by the spectacle. Still she came not; and finally her lady of honour, Fräulein von Knesebeck, arrived, not as her attendant but her representative, with excuses for the non-appearance of her mistress, whom unfeigned indisposition detained at her own hearth.
The course of the festival was no longer delayed; in it the bride and bridegroom were forgotten, and George and Ermengarda were the hero and heroine of the hour. After that hour no one doubted as to the bad eminence achieved by that lady—unworthy daughter of an ancient and honourable race. So narrowly and sharply observant was the lynx-eyed von Knesebeck of all that passed between her mistress’s husband and that husband’s mistress, that when she returned to her duties of dame d’atours, she unfolded a narrative that inflicted a stab in every phrase and tore the heart of the despairing listener.
CHAPTER V.
THE ELECTORATE OF HANOVER.
The House of Hanover ranges itself against France—Ernest Augustus created Elector—Domestic rebellion of his son Maximilian—His accomplice, Count von Moltke, beheaded—The Electors of Germany.