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Will you now tell me without any more of this, precisely what the Princess Sophia was doing here with you?" Königsmark drew himself stiffly up, looking squarely into the furnace of the Elector's face. "Your Highness assumes that the Princess was here with me, and a prince is not to be contradicted, even when he insults a lady whose spotless purity is beyond his understanding.
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.
In a little time the work became a wondrous farrago, in which Konigsmark the robber figured by the side of Sam Lynn, and the Marchioness de Brinvilliers was placed in contact with a Chinese outlaw.
Turenne was requested by Enghien to endeavour to arrange matters, and by his kind and gentle manner succeeded in conciliating Geis, who consented to remain with the Hessians. Konigsmark, however, as hot tempered as Enghien himself, refused to do so, and with his whole force retired to Bremen, in Lower Saxony.
And then at last one day the Countess sped in haste to the Elector with word that Königsmark and the Princess had shut themselves up together in the garden pavilion. Let him come at once, and he should so discover them for himself, and thus at last be able to take action. The Countess was flushed with triumph.
"You are relieved, sir, of your duties in the Electoral Guard, and as that is the only tie binding you to Hanover, we see no reason why your sojourn here should be protracted." Königsmark bowed stiffly, formally. "It shall end, your Highness, as soon as I can make the necessary arrangements for my departure in a week at most." "You are accorded three days, sir."
Sure enough, it was in this year 1693, that the famed Konigsmark tragedy came ripening fast towards a crisis in Hanover; and next year the catastrophe arrived. A most tragic business; of which the little Boy, now here, will know more one day. And on Sunday 1st of July, 1694, Colonel Count Philip Konigsmark, Colonel in the Hanover Dragoons, was seen for the last time in this world.
One school takes the irrational as a matter of fact; and if we read that Daphne fled before Phoebus, and was changed into a laurel tree, that school would say that there probably was a young lady called Aurora, like, for instance, Aurora Konigsmark; that a young man called Robin, or possibly a man with red hair, pursued her, and that she hid behind a laurel tree that happened to be there.
His acquaintance with her dated back to childhood, for they had been playmates at her father's ducal court of Zell, where Königsmark had been brought up. With adolescence he had gone out into the world to seek the broader education which it offered to men of quality and spirit.
Königsmark has an assignation with the Princess Sophia this very night at ten o'clock and where do you suppose? In her Highness's own apartments." The Elector came to his feet with an oath. "That is not true!" he cried. "It cannot be!" "Then I'll say no more," quoth Jezebel, and snapped her thin lips. "Ah, but you shall. How do you know this?"
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