The Duchess Dowager of Wurtemberg also came, sorrow on her;a foolish talking woman, always cutting jokes, ****** eyes, giggling and coquetting; "HAS some wit and manner, but wearies you at last: her charms, now on the decline, were never so considerable as rumor said; in the long-run she bores you with her French gayeties and sprightliness: her character for gallantry is too notorious. She quite corrupted Marwitz, in this and a subsequent visit; turned the poor girl's head into a French whirligig, and undermined any little moral principle she had. She was on the road to Berlin,"--of which anon, for it is not quite nothing to us;--"but she was in no hurry, and would right willingly have gone with us." And it required all our female diplomacy to get her under way again, and fairly out of our course. January 28th, SHE off to Berlin; WE, same day, to Frankfurt-on-Mayn. [Wilhelmina, ii. 334;see pp. 335, 338, 347, &c. for the other salient points that follow.]
Coronation was to have been (or we Country-folk thought it was), January 31st: Let us be there INCOGNITO, the night before; see it, and return the day after. That was our plan. Bad roads, waters all out; we had to go night and day;--reached the gates of Frankfurt, 30th January late. Berghover, our Legationsrath there, says we are known everywhere; Coronation is not to be till February 12th! I was fatigued to death, a bad cold on me, too: we turned back to the last Village; stayed there overnight. Back again to Berghover, in secret (A LA SOURDINE), next night; will see the Public Entry of Karl Albert, which is to be to-morrow (not quite, my Princess;January 31st for certain, [Adelung, iii. A, 63; &c. &c.] did one the least care). "It was a very grand thing indeed (DES PLUSSUPERBES); but I will not stop describing it. Masked ball that night; where I had much amusement, tormenting the masks; not being known to anybody. We next day retired to a small private House, which Berghover had got for us, out of Town, for fear of being discovered; and lodged there, waiting February 12th, under difficulties."The weather was bitterly cold; we had brought no clothes; my dames and I nothing earthly but a black ANDRIENNE each (whatever that may be), to spare bulk of luggage: strictest incognito was indispensable. The Marwitzes, for giggling, raillery, French airs, and absolute impertinence, were intolerable, in that solitary place. We return to Frankfurt again; have balls and theatres, at least: "of these latter I missed none. One evening, my head-dress got accidentally shoved awry, and exposed my face for a moment;Prince George of Hessen-Cassel, who was looking that way, recognized me; told the Prince of Orange of it;--they are in our box, next minute!"Prince George of Hessen-Cassel, did readers ever hear of him before? Transiently perhaps, in Friedrich's LETTERS TO HIS FATHER;but have forgotten him again; can know him only as the outline of a shadow. A fat solid military man of fifty; junior Brother of that solid WILHELM, Vice-regent and virtual "Landgraf of Hessen"--(VICEan elder and eldest Brother, FRIEDRICH, the now Majesty of Sweden, who is actual Hereditary Landgraf, but being old, childless, idle, takes no hold of it, and quite leaves it to Wilhelm),--of whom English readers may have heard, and will hear. For it is Wilhelm that hires us those "subsidized 6,000," who go blaring about on English pay (Prince George merely Commandant of them); and Wilhelm, furthermore, has wedded his Heir-Apparent to an English Princess lately; [Princess Mary (age only about seventeen), 28th June, 1740;Prince's name was Friedrich (became Catholic, 1749; WIFE made family-manager in Consequence, &c. &c.).] which also (as the poor young fellow became Papist by and by) costs certain English people, among others, a good deal of trouble. Uncle George, we say, is merely Commandant of those blaring 6,000; has had his own real soldierings before this; his own labors, contradictions, in his time; but has borne all patiently, and grown fat upon it, not quarrelling with his burdens or his nourishments. Perhaps we may transiently meet him again.
As to the Prince of Orange, him we have seen more than once in times past: a young fellow in comparison, sprightly, reckoned clever, but somewhat humpbacked; married an English Princess, years ago ("Papa, if he were as ugly as a baboon!")--which fine Princess, we find, has stopt short at Cassel, too fatigued on the present occasion. "His ESPRIT," continues Wilhelmina, "and his conversation, delighted me. His Wife, he said, was at Cassel;he would persuade her to come and make my acquaintance;"--could not; too far, in this cold season. "These two Serene Highnesses would needs take me home in their carriage; they asked the Margraf to let them stay supper: from that hour they were never out of our house. Next morning, by means of them, the secret had got abroad.
Kur-Koln [lanky hook-nosed gentleman, richest Pluralist in the Church] had set spies on us; next evening he came up to me, and said, 'Madam, I know your Highness; you must dance a measure with me!' That comes of one's head-gear getting awry! We had nothing for it but to give up the incognito, and take our fate!"This dancing Elector of Koln, a man still only entering his forties, is the new Emperor's Brother: [Clement August (Hubner, t. 134).] do readers wonder to see him dance, being an Archbishop?