margrave to consent to it; but the thing was very difficult; for the margrave was no great lover of pleasure, and made it a point of conscience to object to everything of the kind, in which ideas he was confirmed by his almoner, an extravagant enthusiast. Flora, to whom we spoke on the subject, undertook to procure his consent. She contrived matters so well, that the margrave himself came to me to propose the fête. I at once gave my consent. He requested me to give such orders as I pleased, provided there was no masquerade. This amusement is only known in Germany. There is a landlord and landlady, who give an entertainment; the other masks represent all the different trades and professions in the world. At this entertainment the face is not masked, and that was the reason why it had been projected by La Marwitz, as she knew it would be useless to propose a masked ball to the margrave, who would never have given his consent to it.

I ordered the hall, which was of an immense size, to be completely decorated like a wood, at one end of which was seen a village, with its inn, which had the sign of "The Good Woman without a Head." The inn was constructed of the bark of trees, and the roof illuminated. It contained a table for a hundred guests, in the middle of which several jets-d'eau were represented. The houses of the peasants contained shops, with all sorts of refreshments. The ball began after supper. Every person was highly delighted with the entertainment, with the exception of myself, for the margrave never ceased persecuting me the whole evening through with his abominable moral lectures, so that I could speak to nobody, although many strangers were present, with whom I should have willingly entered into conversation.

Next Sunday the margrave's almoner preached publicly against this masquerade. He apostrophised the whole of us in open church, and though he spared the margrave in public, in private he reproached him

so bitterly for having consented to such a piece of iniquity, that the poor margrave believed himself damned to all eternity. He took such repeated oaths to this ecclesiastic never more to suffer such pleasures in his dominions, that at last he received an absolution. Not contented with what he had done himself, he wished the hereditary prince also to abjure them, but the prince contrived to elude the oath, to the great displeasure of the margrave. An adventure which happened then still increased his superstition, and would have reduced us to live like the monks of La Trappe, if the hereditary prince had not taken the trouble to discover the cheat.

Since the death of prince William, a panic seemed to have taken possession of every mind. Every day we heard nothing but the stories of ghosts, who, it was said, had been seen in the castle; every one of these stories was more ridiculous than another. The care of my preservation induced a spirit of flesh and blood to interfere in my favour. Whatever we wish, we believe. There was a rumour in the town that I was pregnant. As I knew the rumour to be without foundation, I learned to ride on horseback, partly for amusement, and partly for the sake of my health, for which the physicians had prescribed a good deal of exercise. The margrave had given me a black horse, exceedingly gentle, and as I was very weak, I never continued more than a quarter of an hour on horseback. Every novelty is ill received. This custom, in vogue both in England and France, was not then introduced in Germany. Everybody exclaimed against it, and it was what gave rise to the stories of ghosts. The marshal de Reitzenstein was informed that a spectre of a most frightful figure appeared every evening in one of the corridors of the castle, and delivered in an awful voice these words: "Tell the princess of the country, that if she continues to ride on the black horse, she will experience a great calamity, and that she must not leave her room for six

weeks." M. de Reitzenstein, who was extremely superstitious, immediately informed the margrave of the apparition, on which I received an express prohibition to leave the castle, or mount on horseback.

I was very much displeased at this, especially for such a trifling reason; I assured the margrave that the whole was nothing but a trick for the purpose. The hereditary prince communicated his conjectures to him on the subject, and urged the margrave so much that he at length obtained permission to investigate it. The prince placed confidential persons in all the entrances through which the spirit could pass ; but it had such good information that it never made its appearance on the days when it was watched. The prince at last promised a large reward to the woman who first saw it, if she could discover what it was. The poor woman took a dark lantern with her, but she had only time to look at the spectre; it had taken good precautions, and blew so subtle a poison in her eyes, that she lost sight of it. She swore that the spirit had two nut-shells over its eyes, and its whole countenance was so wrapped up with grey cloth that she could not investigate it. This discovery by no means dissipated the bigotry of the margrave, or rather his ill-humour against us. The hereditary prince thought that, to avoid all dissension, it would be better for us to leave the place for some time. We had long owed a visit to the margrave of Anspach; we took this critical time to pay it, and set out on the 21st of January.

The prediction of the spectre was very near being accomplished; in passing over a frightful precipice, the fore-wheel went out of the track, and we should have been overset, if my hey-dukes had not held the coach by the hind wheels. The margrave, La Marwitz and my governess got out with difficulty, as the rock would not allow the door to be completely opened. My servants, imagining that we had all got out of the carriage, let go the wheels. Fear gave me strength

and agility; I sprung at one leap out of the carriage, but my feet slipped, and I fell under it the moment it began to move. La Marwitz, and a Prussian officer who followed us, laid hold of my dress and extricated me, otherwise I should have been crushed to death. As I was very much frightened, they gave me some wine to recruit my spirits; after which we continued our journey.

A thaw had come on the preceding night. The sun began to give way to darkness, to speak in the language of romance, and we had a river to pass. This river was frozen over; but we had scarcely begun to cross it, when the ice broke and the horses and coach stuck fast. We were extricated by means of ropes, and with the utmost precaution, otherwise we should infallibly have been drowned.

At length we reached Beiersdorff, where I went to bed half dead with fatigue and fright, and the following evening we reached Anspach. My reception was similar to the former; and as I have already described that court, I shall not at present dwell on my stay there; I left it on the 8th of February, and arrived the following day at Bareith.

New disasters awaited us. At the period of my marriage the king had entered into a convention with the margrave that he should be allowed to enlist for three Prussian regiments in his dominions; namely, my brother's, the hereditary prince's, and that of the prince of Anholt. M. de Munichow, captain of the regiment of Bareith, remained to take care of the recruits; he was a young man, a great favourite of my brother, and son of the president Munichow, whe rendered him such service during his detention. My brother had recommended him to the hereditary prince; he was a good lad, but his genius none of the brightest. He met us at Streitberg, where we were to dine, and immediately told the hereditary prince of his capture of a man of six feet. This man he said belonged to Bamberg, and wished to enlist in

another regiment, which had determined him to carry him off by force, near Bareith, so secretly that nobody knew of it, and to send him to Basewaldt. He added, that he was a good-for-nothing fellow, who would never be missed, and he concluded that the affair would be passed over in silence.

The hereditary prince communicated this noble achievement of Munichow to me, and began to be alarmed for the consequences; he testified his uneasiness even to Munichow, but the young man gave him such assurances of the prudence with which he had acted throughout, that we began to flatter ourselves the affair would never transpire. What persuaded me of the margrave's ignorance was the reception he gave us; he even came on the 12th of February to Himmelcron.

*

We thought no more of this business till we were awoke at midnight by M. de Voit. He came to inform us that M. Lauterbach, a privy counsellor, but a man of ordinary birth, had called on him towards the dusk, and had desired him to inform us that he came from Himmelcron, where he found the margrave in a more violent passion than he had ever before witnessed; that the margrave was acquainted with what Munichow had done; that he suspected his son to have a hand in it, and swore to be revenged on him in an exemplary manner; that he was to return to town next day, and that we ought to take our measures beforehand, as everything was to be feared for the hereditary prince.

This information plunged us into the greatest alarm. We held a futile council, for all our expedients were useless, and the hereditary prince had no other resource but submission; but if that failed, all was lost. We passed a cruel night.

At break of day I sent for my governess; another new council without any conclusion. At last I spoke to Flora; she promised to use all her credit to accommodate this troublesome business; but she added she

M