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As before, Enghien was in supreme command, with de Gramont as his lieutenant general. Long conferences took place between these generals: Turenne, General Geis, who commanded the Hessians, and Konigsmark, who commanded the Swedes. The Bavarians were known to be very strongly posted, and to have been reinforced by four thousand Imperialists under the command of General Geis.
His bulging eyes swept round the chamber, and fastened finally, glaring, upon the startled Königsmark. "Where is the Princess?" he blurted out. The Count espied Madame von Platen in the back ground, and had the scent of mischief very strong. But he preserved an air of innocent mystification. He rose and answered with courteous ease: "Your Highness is seeking her? Shall I ascertain for you?"
I finished my poem, but Amelia, and not Aurora, was my heroine. Hasse composed the music, and no one who attended the concert, given in honor of the birthday of the Countess Kozel, had an idea that this festal cantata had been originally ordered for Aurora of Konigsmark! "Once, while I was in Russia, I had an audience from the Empress Elizabeth.
I remember, that while I was residing at the court of Saxony, I composed a poem in honor of the Countess Aurora of Konigsmark. This was by special command of the king; the poem was to be set to music by Hasse, and sung by the Italian singers on the birthday of Aurora. Well, the Countess Aurora was cast aside before my poem was finished, and the Countess Kozel had taken her place.
And at her elbow, against this dreadful need, Destiny had placed her sometime playmate, her most devoted friend as she accounted him, and as, indeed, he was the elegant, reckless Königsmark, with his beautiful face, his golden mane, and his unfathomable blue eyes.
Madame von Platen was the only one concerned who thought that it was not well at all, the consummation being far from that which she had desired. She had dreamt of a flaming scandal, that should utterly consume her two enemies, Sophia and Königsmark.
A strange and lasting impression was wrought upon me by a corpse and a picture in this convent. Both were in a subterranean chamber which possessed the property of preserving animal bodies from corruption. In this room was the body of Countess Aurora von Konigsmark, famed as the most beautiful woman of her time.
Clarendon lingered, melancholy and disillusioned, at his fine house in Piccadilly until, impeached by Parliament, he remembered Strafford's fate, and set out to tread once more and for the remainder of his days the path of exile. Time avenged him. Two of his granddaughters Mary and Anne reigned successively as queens in England. Count Philip Königsmark and the Princess Sophia Dorothea
This was the Konigsmark tragedy at Hanover; fast ripening towards its catastrophe while little Friedrich Wilhelm was there. Fact surely of a rather horrible sort; yet better, I must say, than was suspected: not quite so bad in the state of fact as in that of rumor. In which evidence the facts, or essential fact, lie at last indisputable enough.
To royal Ambassadors a chevalier d'honneur is sent, to those from Venice or Holland the first equerry, and when he is absent or unwell the chief Maitre d'Hotel, who is also sent to the Ambassador from Malta. The English ladies are said to be much given to running away with their lovers. I knew a Count von Konigsmark, whom a young English lady followed in the dress of a page.
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