THE HOUSEHOLD OF GEORGE AND SOPHIA.
Reception of Sophia at the Court of Ernest Augustus--Similar
position of Marie Antoinette and Sophia--Misfortune of the
abigail Use--Compassionated by the Duchess of Zell--Intrigues
and revenge of Madame von Platen--A new favourite, Mademoiselle
Ermengarda von der Schulenburg--A marriage fête, and intended
insult to the Princess Sophia--Gross vice of George Louis.
It is said that a certain becomingness of compliment was paid to the
bride in an order given to Katharine von Busche to absent herself
from the palace when the bride was brought home. The mistress, it is
alleged, deferred her departure till it was too late, and from a window
of Madame von Platen’s bedchamber the sisters witnessed the sight of
George Louis dismounting from his horse, and hastening to help his wife
to descend from the carriage.
Madame von Platen, as she gazed, may have thought that her sister’s
influence was over. If she did, Madame von Busche felt convinced of
the contrary. The latter took her departure, for a season. The other
prepared herself to join in the splendid court festivities held in
honour of the event by the command of Ernest Augustus. Sophia Dorothea,
subdued by past suffering, was so gentle that even Madame von Platen
would have found it difficult to have felt offended with her sister’s
rival.
For a few months after Sophia Dorothea’s husband had taken her to
Hanover, she experienced, perhaps, a less degree of unhappiness than
was ever her lot subsequently. Her open and gentle nature won the
regard even of Ernest Augustus. That is, he paid her as much regard as
a man so coarsely minded as he was _could_ feel for one of such true
womanly dignity as his daughter-in-law.
His respect for her, however, may be best appreciated by the
companionship to which he sometimes subjected her. He more frequently
saw her in society with the immoral Madame von Platen than in the
society of his own wife. Ernest looked gratefully upon her as the
pledge of the future union of the two duchies under one duke. On this
account, even if she had possessed less attractive qualities, he would
have held Sophia Dorothea in great esteem. A certain measure of esteem
Ernest experienced for all who had in any way furthered his scheme. His
mistress, Madame von Platen, had always pretended to think favourably
of the scheme, and admiringly of the wisdom of the schemer; in return
for which, Ernest made his mistress’s husband a baron, and afterwards
a count. Let us employ the higher dignity. In the beginning, George
Louis seemed fairly in love with his wife; there appeared a promise of
increased felicity when the first child of this marriage was born at
Hanover, on the 30th of October 1683; his father conferred on him the
names of George Augustus, he expressed pleasure at having an heir, and
he even added some words of regard for the mother. The second child
of this marriage was a daughter, born in 1687. She was that Sophia
Dorothea who subsequently married the King of Prussia. In tending these
two children the mother found all the happiness she ever experienced
during her married life. Soon after the birth of the daughter, George
Louis openly neglected and openly exhibited his hatred of his wife. He
lost no opportunity of irritating and outraging her, and she could not
even walk through the rooms of the palace which she called her home
without encountering the abandoned female favourites of her husband,
whose presence beneath such a roof was the most flagrant of outrages.
Her very sense of helplessness was a great grief to her. All that her
own mother could do when her daughter complained to her of the presence
near her of her husband’s mistress, was to advise her to imitate, on
this point, the indifference of her mother-in-law, and make the best of
it!
The Countess von Platen kept greater state in Hanover than Sophia
Dorothea herself. In her own palatial mansion two dozen servants
helped her helplessness. Every morning she had ‘a circle,’ as if she
were a royal lady holding a court. Her dinners were costly banquets;
her ‘evenings’ were renowned for the brilliancy of her fêtes and the
reckless fury of gambling. Sophia Dorothea, whose talent for listening
and for putting apt and sympathetic questions when the conversation
required it, gave considerable satisfaction to her clever, but somewhat
pedantic mother-in-law, failed to at all satisfy the Countess von
Platen. This lady had tried to bring the princess into something like
sympathy with herself, but she found only antipathy. She detested
Sophia Dorothea accordingly, and she obtained permission to invite her
sister, Madame von Busche, to return to Hanover.
The prime mover of the hatred of George Louis for his consort was the
Countess von Platen, and this fact was hardly known to George Louis
himself. There was one thing in which that individual had a fixed
belief: his own sagacity and, it may be added, his own imaginary
independence of outward influences. He _was_ profound in some things;
but, as frequently happens with persons who fancy themselves deep in
all, he was very shallow in many. It was often impossible to guess his
purpose, but quite as often his thoughts were as clearly discernible
as the pebbles in the bed of a transparent brook. The Countess von
Platen saw through him thoroughly, and she employed her discernment for
the furtherance of her own detestable objects.
Sophia Dorothea had, however, contrived to win the good opinion of her
mother-in-law, and also the warm favour of Ernest Augustus. The latter
took her with him on a journey he made to Switzerland and Italy. It
was on this journey that her portrait was taken, at Venice, by Gascar,
who, when in England, had painted, among others, that of Louise de
Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. This portrait of Sophia Dorothea is
still in existence in Germany. The beauty of the lady represented is
so remarkable, it is said, as to justify the admiration she generally
excited. This admiration sometimes went beyond decent bounds. One
French adorer, the celebrated and eccentric Marquis de Lassay, was
impudent enough, not only to address declarations of love to her, but
subsequently, in his ‘Memoirs,’ to publish his letters. It has not yet
occurred to the ever-busy autograph fabricators on the continent to
forge the supposed replies of the princess.
After the return of Ernest Augustus and his daughter-in-law to Hanover,
the praise of Sophia Dorothea was ever the theme which hung on the
lips of the former, and such eulogy was as poison poured in the ears
of Madame von Platen. She dreaded the loss of her own influence over
the father of George Louis, and she fancied she might preserve it by
destroying the happiness of the wife of his son. Her hatred of that
poor lady had been increased by a circumstance with which she could not
be connected, but which nearly concerned the Duchess of Zell.
Ernest Augustus used occasionally to visit Madame von Platen at her
own residence, with more than enough of publicity. He was more inclined
to conversation with her than with his prime-minister, her husband; and
she had wit enough, if not worth, to give warrant for such preference.
Now and then, however, the ducal sovereign would repair to pay his
homage to the lady without previous notice being forwarded of his
coming; and it was on one of these occasions that, on arriving at the
mansion, or in the gardens of the mansion of his minister’s spouse, he
found, not the lady of the house, who was absent, but her bright-eyed,
ordinary-featured, and quick-witted handmaid, who bore a name which
might have been given to such an official in Elizabethan plays by Ford
or Fletcher. Her name was ‘Use.’
Ernest Augustus found the wit of Use much to his taste; and the
delighted abigail was perfectly self-possessed, and more brilliant than
common in the converse which she sustained for the pleasure of the
sovereign, and her own expected profit. She had just, it is supposed,
come to the point of some exquisitely epigrammatic tale, for the prince
was laughing with his full heart, and her hand in his, and the ’tiring
maiden was as radiant as successful wit and endeavour could make her,
when Madame von Platen interrupted the sparkling colloquy by her more
fiery presence. She affected to be overcome with indignation at the
boldness of a menial who dared to make merry with a sovereign duke; and
when poor Use had been rudely dismissed from the two presences--the
one august and the other angry--the Countess von Platen probably
remonstrated with Ernest Augustus, respectfully or otherwise, upon his
deplorable want of dignity and good taste.
Revenge certainly followed, whether remonstrance may or may not have
been offered. Ernest Augustus went to sojourn for a time at one of his
rural palaces, and he had no sooner left his capital than the countess
committed the terrified Use to close imprisonment in the common gaol.
The history of little German courts assures us that this exercise
and abuse of power were not at all uncommon with the ‘favourites’ of
German princes. Their word was ‘all potential as the duke’s,’ and
doubtless the Countess von Platen’s authority was as good warrant for
a Hanoverian gaoler to hold Use in custody as if he had shut up that
maid, who offended by her wit, under the sign manual of Ernest Augustus
himself.
Use was kept captive, and very shabbily treated, until the Countess
von Platen had resolved as to the further course which should be
ultimately adopted towards her. She could bring no charge against her,
save a pretended accusation of lightness of conduct and immorality
scandalous to Hanoverian decorum. Under this charge she had her old
handmaid drummed out of the town; and if the elder Sophia heard the
tap of the drums which accompanied the alleged culprit to the gates,
we can only suppose that she would have expelled the countess to the
same music. But, in the first place, the wives of princes were by no
means so powerful as their favourites; and secondly, the friend of the
philosophical Leibnitz was too much occupied with the sage to trouble
herself with the affairs which gave concern to the Countess von Platen.
Use found herself outside the city walls, friendless, penniless, with
a damaged character, and nothing to cover it but the light costume
which she had worn in the process of her march of expulsion to the roll
of ‘dry drums.’ When she had found a refuge, her first course was to
apply to Ernest Augustus for redress. The prince, however, was at once
oblivious, ungrateful, and powerless; and, confining himself to sending
to the poor petitioner a paltry eleemosynary half-dozen of gold pieces,
he forbade her return to Hanover, counselled her to settle elsewhere,
and congratulated her that she had not received even rougher treatment.
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.