He will be there at the above-mentioned hour; do not doubt of his fidelity. Adieu, incomparable Goddess; I wish you good evening, and desire that your dreams may be as full of me as mine are of you. After having once more reread your letter, I shall go to sleep, with the hope of dreaming of [nothing] else than you. I embrace you a Million times, and am your very obedient ser[vant].ser[vant].

This moment I have received a very long letter, and one of the kind I like from the Electoral Princess. I have not had leisure to read it, lest the post should leave, and without assuring you what joy it gave me when I received it; le bonhomme goes to-morrow to Engsen^[224]; on his return I shall know my fate, which I shall at once make known to the Electoral Princess. I am continually offering up vows that I may not have to set out on the march, so that I may be able to embrace her whom I love, and for whom I am ready to die a thousand and a thousand times. Believe me that I adore you in the most violent way in the world. Would to Heaven I might have occasion to prove it to you! I shall not forget for a moment, in order to convince you of it. What satisfaction it will be to me if by my obedience I shall be able to show you how deep a regard I have for you and what pleasure I take in being your slave for ever. Adieu, my incomparable Leonisse; how I will kiss thee, my little one.^[225]—K.

The bonhomme has returned from his conference, and made me dismiss the orderlies without commands. This is what leads me to suppose that we shall still remain [here] during the present week; and, as I am to dine with him to-morrow, I shall have some further information, which I will at once communicate to you. In the meantime, make ready to carry out what follows. The Duchess has been to Linde,^[226] to get rid of Countess Platen. Count de Stenbock, whom you saw here seven years ago, wished to pay his respects, and Count de La Gardie also.^[227] I took them there, and I found the good Plesse[?]^[228] at a stand [?], and the paint running down everywhere—she was so overcome at seeing such a number of strangers arrive that she was quite confused. She chose the wiser part, for she withdrew at once, to put herself to rights again. There is a good deal of malicious wit in the Electress, and she could not have revenged herself better. Think of coming, I entreat you; and believe that without seeing you is to be dead, and I marvel that my fate should have been so cruel to me as to let me survive all its misfortunes; but, if I do not see you soon, there is no war nor danger which I will not seek in order to shorten my unhappy life. I die with shame at not being dead already. How does it agree with my loving you to distraction that I neither see you nor speak to you, and yet survive! I believe that my confounded fate preserves me in order to trouble me all the more. You alone can rescue me from my despair; come quickly to console me, or I shall commit some desperate act which I shall regret all my life, for the life I lead is unbearable; I hate it like death, I am tired out with it and can no longer bear it; I wish that the lightning would destroy all those who prevent us from seeing one another and joining our flames. Pardon the rage which my too violent passion calls forth in me: it seems to me that, if I must not see what I love, it is right that I should not see the light of day. At this moment I should be capable of sacrificing Father, Mother, Brother, and Sister, if I thought that they prevented me from seeing my angel. Leonisse, what torments your beauty costs me, to what trouble your charms give rise! Come and make me forget all my woes; thou canst do it, by thy embraces, by thy caresses; and there is no one in the world capable of this but thyself. I await you with the greatest impatience in the world; and do not allow me to say that you are quick to depart, while ... to return where love calls [?] you. I should however be in the wrong, if I complained of our parting, for it was loving and sincere; but I beseech you, do not give me reason to complain of a last parting. Farewell! I kiss you a thousand, thousand times. Mlle. de Knesebeck is the best person in the world; I beg you to tell her of my regard for her. I ask, with your permission, to be remembered to her.

It is easy to suppose with what satisfaction I have read your very charming letter. This satisfaction was due to me, in order to take me a little out of the deep reverie into which my misfortunes and our separation have plunged me. Your letter is long, loving, and as I desire it to be; do not write any more short letters; this ought to relieve you, and I swear to you that for me also you cannot make them long enough. Your love is so agreeable to me that I have no pleasure while away from you but to see that love depicted on paper. I preserve your letters as the most precious things in the world, because they console me for all the disgrace I have to undergo; as I see in them that you swear to love me, to be faithful to me, and never to abandon me—and what more can I desire from you? You see, then, that I am thoroughly well pleased with you; I conjure you to be the same with me, and not to impute it to me that you do not receive my letters regularly by every post. I did not know one day which was Sunday; but, since I am now informed of it, my exactness will show you that I sinned because I knew no better; and my negligence was due to the trouble which is upon me. It is then that I think most of you, for you serve as a consolation to me, and the pleasure of thinking of you surpasses all others that I know. Idolo mio, when shall I have the joy of holding thee in my arms? Is it not enough to make a Cato despair, to see that you can come if Prince Max did not prevent it^[229]; but, although the wish to see you took away my jealousy and I begged you to come, how long shall I be able to be with you, perhaps only two days, and then I shall see you among people who hate us, and others who wish to insinuate themselves. Do not believe, my Angel, that my jealousy springs from any bad opinion I have of you: this would be too criminal—it springs from the violence of my love; so I flatter myself that you will always make excuses for me when this madness takes hold of me. What do I not owe you for taking so much pains to ease me of all my suspicions! Your diaries console me; your vow makes me forget all that I had in my brain. Ah! why am I not by your side! I would throw myself at your feet, to thank you for all the care you take to render me happy and contented. I am convinced of your good intentions; I have no doubt of your fidelity; and I see very well that if you ruled fate, so many worries would not occur. As I may perhaps receive orders to march to Lunen [Lüneburg?], tell me if I may not go to Celle, without giving umbrage. If you are not there, politeness demands it; but at present I do not know what I ought to do. The answer of the Electress of Brandenburg^[230] is amusing enough, and well deserves an answer, in which the music ought not to be spared. I do not know whether I am mistaken, but, on rereading letter No. 11, I do not find it so sincere as No. 10; tell me if I am mistaken; No. 10 is charming—it shows the real passion which you felt in writing it. For the love of me, be always like that, and do not let me perceive any coldness. What have I done to deserve it; tell me, so that I may exculpate myself. Is it perhaps that you do not think it loving that I do not ask you to come? But remember what it is that prevents me from doing so. If, however, you desire it, I will beg you to come; but I shall be perhaps two days here; and then your neighbour will have a free field. He has loved you, and, indeed, he has not been indifferent to you. I am always afraid of him, though there is hardly anything to be afraid of in him; but it is sufficient that he has been on a very familiar footing with you, for me to have good reason for fearing his impertinence, and it would even be annoying to see a man about you who might find twenty little holes through which he might see you, besides that you would not be able to say a single word without his hearing it. But all these reasons are not enough; and, if I had hopes of staying, I would nevertheless entreat you to come, in the hope that you would find out a way to get rid of him; for, apart from this, I shall not be able to see you, since he will always be looking out for spying [upon you]. Inasmuch as I cannot give you up, I for this reason refuse all the advantages which present themselves; I intend to make you see from this how attached I am to you, and this is my sole reason why I make you look at the letters which were written to me on all sides. Believe, all the same, that no advantage is capable of making me leave this place so long as you will be kind to me. I know the power of a mother whom one loves, and when she gives you an opportunity, you ought to be prudent enough to resist it. My blood curdles, when I think that your [mother] would be capable, in order to take vengeance on the Electoral Prince, of letting you make a cocu of him; and when this comes into my head, if you ever thus caressed anyone but myself, all my blood flows back in my veins, and I cannot rest still, so long as this thought keeps me unquiet. Ah! good God! if I saw you kiss anyone with the same passion with which you have kissed me, and ride on horseback with the same pleasure—may I never see God if it would not drive me mad! Why, in writing it my hand trembles, and I find it difficult to go on. Let us change the subject. The friends of whom I spoke to you, Bussche and Hammerstein^[231], could you have believed it, it is they who have put into the head of the Electoral Prince all the stories about my [game]. But I have written a letter to the first, which will make him see his falseness very clearly. I am in hopes, moreover, since the Duchess of Celle and the Duke of Celle have come to an agreement; therefore do your best. The war will not last so long as to ruin the country^[232]; that is why this [excuse] cannot long be accounted a defeat. See if you will keep your promise; for you promised me that you would die sooner than not be united to me; continue in this way of thinking, and you will restore my life to me. Am I dear enough to you for you to keep the promise you made to me? If this is so, I swear to you once more by the stars, that nothing in the world shall separate me from you. By the letter enclosed you will see how they are once more trying to persuade me to Marry the Daughter of M. Bielke^[233]; but my answer was, that I would rather die of hunger than do it; and that I begged him particularly not to speak to me any more of marriage, for this might cause a quarrel between us. I flatter myself that you will be pleased with my resolution. Since we have so little chance of seeing each other, we must think of expedients. You will find it in this note; I think that it can be managed, provided I do not go away and that I let you know between the present time and that. If you wish to wait till Prince Max is tired, I shall not see you for a long time; for when he is with the Electress and his thin divinity^[234], he is as happy as a King. I should not have thought that this magpie would have caused me so much sorrow as he does; I wish he were in the heart of Hungary, he would no longer cause me so much heart-ache as he does at present. One could not speak more kindly than you do on the subject of dying of hunger; but do you believe that, although it would be a great consolation to me to see you always at my side, I should like to drag you down into misery? No, no, do not believe it! You must live happy and contented, while I seek some glorious death, to put an end to my unfortunate life and die the lover of the Electoral Princess. I hope that you have received the two letters about which I spoke to you; if not, tell me; you will no longer do me the injustice of believing that any consideration in the world could detach me from you; my protestation on this subject will make you see that I shall die with my Love. How could one forsake you, for the more one knows you the more one adores you; one discovers every day new merits [in you]; and your love alone is capable of making me prefer to have my head cut off rather than abandon you for ever. I am ashamed of my want of exactness; I beg your pardon for it; it is a fault which I entreat you not to attribute to my negligence but to my shortness of memory. But, my divine Leonisse, acknowledge in your turn that my letters are much the longest; and that, had I not told you of it, you would not have made [yours] so large. So each has his due; hence I shall never concede that your love is greater than mine, and I should be inconsolable if I had not given you more substantial proofs of it; for you might believe that vanity, since you are a princess, is the cause of my attachment. No; I swear to you that if you were the hangman’s daughter, and if you possessed the attractions which are actually yours, I should love you with as much ardour. You will think me not very polite; but I flatter myself that you will find my feelings tender and true; in the name of the Gods, continue in the sentiments in which I find you now! If any disgrace were to drive me so far that you conceived a dislike for me, I should certainly send a pistol-shot through my brain....

Pardon me, if sorrow and despair has made me commit the fault of not writing to you for two days. When one is in the state in which I am, one does not know what one is doing. I will begin by telling you that I have changed two ciphers in our key, namely, j means 31, i means 35, u means 53, v means 54. I [beg] you to note this. Next, I must tell you that you have marked two letters No. 10, so that No. 14 ought to be No. 15. But just continue for the present, for there is no other harm done, [except] that the second or first No. 10 might have been lost without one’s having known at all that one had been lost. I must further tell you that I wrote to you two letters addressed to 131, whom I supposed to be at Celle; you must let me know whether you have received them. Three letters were addressed to the postmaster at Celle, which are dated the 20th, and [this] is letter No. 9; the 26th, and [this] is letter No. 12—this one is of consequence; the 30th, and [this] is letter No. 14. It would also be well to see whether you have letter No. 13. I beg you to reply to me without fail as to this. You can see everything by the way in which they follow on one another; for I am quite sure that I have been exact on this occasion. You will be surprised to find me making such reflexions, in the condition in which I am; but, my dear, we have had so many misfortunes, that one must not create any more for oneself. I received yours dated the 26th; but you know what accident happened to me in mistaking one bottle for another. I told you about it in my preceding letters; I see, however, in yours dated the 28th, 29th and 30th what you meant to say to me in [that dated] the 26th. It is a great joy to me to know you free from fear, and I am angry with myself for having been the cause of your disquiet, which has contributed greatly to your illness.^[235] At present, now that you are free from fear, I hope that the fever will leave you also. How I pity you for having suffered so much—[a] six hours of fever. I do not understand how you have strength enough still to write to me. I am as grateful as I ought to be; and I am convinced that it is love which gives you strength; but to what extent am I not obliged by this mark of your affection? Never shall I forget such favours. If my letters had force enough to comfort you in your sufferings, I would arrange for you to have one every hour; but I take this compliment to be an effect of your kindness. However, I can swear to you that your letters are a great consolation to me, and without the three last of them, dated 28th, 29th and 30th, I should be in my grave at this very moment. It would after all be the greatest folly I could commit, for, though it would be a sign of affection, I should lose you; and, [as] you say very well in one of yours, what despair never to see each other again for ever! Let us then live on, together, love each other everlastingly, and swear to each other afresh a constancy which shall never end; and that [after?] death, if we have sense enough, this may likewise endure. In order that we may live together, take all imaginable pains to preserve yourself; remember that my quiet of mind depends on it: if your illness continues, I am quite sure that I shall go mad. The fever prevails a great deal here; we have nearly 200 on the sick-list among our troops; my servants fall sick one after the other. I have been obliged to send my valet de chambre to Celle; the others are at Lüneb[urg]; if this continues, my turn [?] will come too.

I thought I should have an apoplectic fit when I opened your letter, without seeing your handwriting. I hoped to hear that you were better, and you are doing quite the contrary. I believed at the beginning that it was all over with you. Do not suppose that I am annoyed that it is not in your handwriting—far from that, I entreat you to continue in the same way, for I am absolutely against your fatiguing yourself. I pity you as much as an affectionate and tender ... can do so—must the most perfect object in the universe suffer so cruelly? Ye gods, why are you so unjust? But, my heart, I know why this misfortune comes to you^[236]—it is to render me more unhappy that destiny causes you to fall ill; you are made to suffer in order that I may be crucified. And the design succeeds, for no one could send me a greater misfortune. You order me not to disquiet myself—it would be necessary not to love you, in order not to be at the point of death. Every moment I am on my knees to offer up prayer for your complete recovery; I flatter myself that in the end I shall find pity—my prayers are too devout not to find acceptance. May God grant that you may speedily be relieved of your sufferings and I of my fears and of my anxiety! With what joy shall I embrace you, when I shall have that of seeing you. I do not know when this will be possible to me; but my design is to make pretence of an access of fever happening to me; I shall say to the bonhomme that I should like to go for three days to 317, to avoid the fever taking hold of me, that is to say, to take some remedies. Instead of staying at 317, I shall take the post and fly to Celle. I should be able to be two nights with you—what joy, what satisfaction! I should be able to be at your feet, to bathe them with my tears: you would see into how pitiable a state your illness had driven me. But perhaps I am indulging these hopes in vain; for before I can play this part it is in the first instance necessary that the bonhomme should be in better health ... depends further on the future of the 9 [?] ... I have nothing good to Hope for; rage, despair, trouble, disquietude, Love—all these things together have such an effect on me that I am like those people one sees at Amsterdam in the madhouse. God knows what the end of all this will be. The sickness spreads from day to day; my old Lieutenant-C[olonel] and two Lieutenants have fallen [ill] to-day; I do not know how I shall escape it; it is a miracle, for with all the troubles that oppress me I ought to catch it. Farewell, my Angel, I can tell you no more. The express that was sent to me by the bonhomme by [?] thought that you have a lover, who takes so much [interest] in everything that concerns you that you ... do yourself [?]; he is sincere [and] adores you, and has as much Respect for you as anyone in the world; I deserve all your affection and all the kind interest you take in me. If I do not give you assurances enough of my love and fidelity, it is not my fault—it is that I have no opportunity for doing so; I should weary you with my protestations, for I repeat them in all my letters. I fancy that you are like myself. I cannot wait for them too long, and all your letters, were they filled with anything else, would be to me always agreeable and more so than if there were nothing in them.

On the twelfth I did what I do on all other days: that is to say, drink, eat, and go the rounds; the same on the thirteenth. The Duke of Celle came to call on us. You see that I can keep my diaries without difficulty; I do not think they will annoy you at all, for nothing could be more innocent, and those from Hanover will be of the same sort, at least if my going to sup with ladies does not displease you. But I promise to leave this alone also, assuring you that it is the very slightest proof I can offer you, inasmuch as I shall be pleased to do without it, even if you send no orders to stop it. Would to God I could show you by my conduct, that all my thoughts, all my acts are only done for you; but, alas! you are so unjust that you refuse to perceive this. I hate my bad fortune, and it is this which one day will ruin me with you. I have received the letter No. 3 dated the 5th, within eight days after that marked 4; I cannot understand whence arises this delay; but I well know that it is dangerous that the letter should be so long on its way. I am not satisfied with you, and the unkind opinion you have of me as if I neglected you hurts me very much; I think only of you night and day; no other thought enters my mind; and yet, I am [supposed to] forget you, to neglect you. I am inconstant—do I really deserve these designations; be you the judge yourself! Can you accuse me of no longer loving you? Is it possible that it is Leonisse who believes this and reproaches me with it! Great God! how full of injustice you are, and how great a wrong you do me! I love you to madness; I adore you beyond compare; my love surpasses all others—and yet you have doubts of all this; your heart does not speak in my favour. I have reason for complaining of it—that barbarous heart, which ought to plead for me, instead of being my accuser. I have known it kind to me; but little by little all that affection has vanished. Will not your heart recover itself? reproach it on my part; my heart promises an eternal attachment, it swears constancy to you, and, provided that you deign to think of it once in every twenty-four hours, it is content. Does it deserve to be remembered by you? I think it does, but it is for you to judge the case. If I am ever unfortunate enough to love you no longer (which is an impossibility), your wish will be no punishment to me [??], for I swear to you that I shall never seek any other faithful attachment, and, though the present one is dearer to me than my life, I should never wish for another. Remember what a certain Spaniard said: ‘I do not wish to make myself common’—I call it to make myself common if I were to quit the most perfect object of the universe for some other, who could never compare herself as to ....

Most assuredly, without yours of the 12th the Beating of my Heart, of which 127 had been the cause, would have made an end of me, but, most fortunately for me, I received it at the time when my heart was about to burst; and, as I see from it that the news is quite false, I also begin to recover myself. He told me, as quite certain, that your fever had seized you again. Assuredly I should not, with this disquiet, have been able to pass the night alive; and now while I am writing to you I still have the Queen of Hungary Water^[238] on my nose. I think, however, that this will pass away; but I feel very much upset and exhausted; if this does not go away in the night, I shall bleed myself to prevent any evil consequences that might overtake me. M. de Sporck^[239] will, according to all appearances, die before the day is over; I have 3 Captains, 5 Lieutenants and 4 Ensigns sick to death, more than 300 foot-soldiers and dragoons, of our troops only, are quite down; it is an infected air, the healthiest sicken in it; all the same, I hope not to fall sick, knowing you to be out of the wood. You will have seen from my letter dated the 12th how well satisfied I am with you; do not be offended that I begged you to [write] me two words with your own hand; I knew that you were a little better; otherwise I should not have done it; but, my best beloved heart, you have done too much, for you have written me two entire pages; I beg you very particularly not to do this any more, nor until you are quite well again. The siege of Charleroi^[240] will prevent the Electoral Prince from being here so soon; great God, may this siege deliver us from troublesome people! It is said for certain that things are settling down; but the orders that are given for taking care of the sick make me tremble with fear that we shall not so soon quit this post. I am agitated by the same despair as you are, to have to pass my life with people for whom I feel an aversion, and to be allowed to pass so little time with her whom I adore. However, you are more to be pitied, for I can very often get free of it, and you not, besides the embraces which you are obliged to undergo. It seems to me that, if I had to suffer the same sort of thing, I could not prevent myself from being sick every time it should happen to me. Ah, how horrible to caress what one hates mortally; I firmly believe that purgatory does not inflict so many torments as do caresses of that sort. If it is true that the Elector of Hanover is not going to 308, I might well come there; but we cannot take our measures before it is known what will become of the Electoral Prince. The Duchess of Hanover^[241] will not arrive till towards the end of next month; and then the Electoral Prince will have returned, and the hunting will be over. May God only grant that we begin it soon, and that you are able to put in an appearance. I pity you for having grown so thin; but (with your permission) I find the question which you put to me ridiculous and absurd. If I loved nothing in you but your beauty I would forgive it you; but you are convinced that it is not only this which I adore—it is your merits, your [sweet] temper.^[242] I confess to you that to see you beautiful charms the eyes; but I protest to you that, were you ugly like Madame Kopstein,^[243] I should not love you a whit the less. Tired of you? Ah, is it possible to ask such a question as this of a lover who loves you dearly! No, no, Leonisse, you are not convinced of my sincere affection. What must I do to bring the conviction of it home to you? I shall never be at rest, till I know that you are quite convinced of it. Do you believe that an affection like mine arose out of anything so transitory as beauty? Although you have much of it, and more than any one else of your sex, I can tell you that it is not your beauty which has put me into the condition in which I am. It is true that the beauty which you possess set me on fire, and that without it I should perhaps not have been as happy as I am; but that which has made me as I am is your esprit, your sincerity, your way of living, and, finally, it is your soul, so high-bred and so well-balanced, which produces in you a sweetness beyond compare, an unequalled generosity, with clemency beyond all imagination. It is these virtues which have placed me in the dear slavery in which I find myself at this moment, and in which I also mean to die. In truth, Leonisse, you trouble me greatly with your questions; you fear that I shall become unfaithful to the greatest Beauty of the age, and to virtue itself, for some unfledged princesses^[244] without any other merit but that of having been to Paris. Once more, I see only too well that you are not well convinced of my love; I hope that in the end I shall give you so many signs of it that you will no longer be able to doubt it. To take the proper steps it is necessary that we should speak to each other; we have time up to the end of the coming month [?], and before this time we need not fear the return of the Electoral Prince, and of the Duchess. You still attack [me about] princesses [?]. Do you perhaps think that I am so fond as you are yourself of novelty, of change, and of people who come from Paris? You are quite mistaken: I wear my chains with very great pleasure, and would not change them for the Kingdom of the Great Mogul. The letter of the Lieutenant-Colonel is very silly, but the person is reasonable enough; she has inspired a strong affection in a very brave man, of high rank, in the Low Countries, whose name is the Marquis of Spinosa.^[245] He is one of the fine gentlemen [galans] of that country. But since I have sent you a very silly letter, I shall make up for it by one that is very well written; if it were not written out of a book, we ought to admire it particularly as coming from this person; but let me tell you that she found it word for word in a book. However, it must be allowed that it is phrased very suitably. I beg you to send it back to me; I send it you because I think it will amuse you. Adieu.

I needed your letter to sustain me in the despair which had fallen upon me. This is what comes of acting openly, and if you had not spoken to me of ... I believe that I could not have held out a day longer. However, I controlled myself excellently; and I wished in the first instance to know what you would say to me; so I did not give way to my anger. Let me tell you then that I was the day before yesterday at Linde.^[246] Mme. la Comtesse was greatly astonished that I did not play with you. I said to her that this required permission; she said, Mme. Léonisse made the Elector ask me; and he replied positively that she might summon her players. Yesterday, before receiving your letter, I was told by Oberg who had seen M. Weyhe at Linde, that his Highness had said it to yourself.^[247] Prince Ernest Augustus said to me in these words, that the Elector had said to you, ‘You are bored, Madam; you ought to summon your players.’ It would have depended on yourself, if he had spoken to you in this way. But, Madam, I was greatly relieved when I read your letter, in which you write to me about this matter. I have drawn my moral, which is never begin to fly into a passion about vapours. But, my divine creature, could you not [contrive to] let [me] come, in order that I might have the joy of gazing upon you, and that my eyes and my heart might learn from yours how I stand with them, and whether your love is such as you wrote to me. Your letter of yesterday is charming; it touched me so that I feel more on fire than ever. You write that you see nobody; nothing could be more obliging; but you see the Reformer all the more; which makes me fear that you will accustom yourself little by little to his mediocre caresses, and he will kiss you so often that I die with trouble only to think of it. For the love of yourself, do not accustom yourself to it; always remember the way in which he treats you—you who deserve all proper, obliging and respectful ways. But I see the defects of another man, and I do not see that it is in this that I am the most criminal. You have told me yourself that the Re[former] ... [at times?] was not so unpleasant in his ways as myself. I die to think of it. How unfortunate I am to love you so tenderly, and that this excessive passion makes me so odious. Think no more of the past, I beseech you. Adieu, adieu, alas, adieu!

I am much to be pitied, and my ill-fortune persecutes me too much for me to be able to bear it any longer. Yesterday’s letters give us no hope that the Ref[ormer] may take his departure; and until he has gone I cannot and ought not to see you. What a cruel destiny! oh, insupportable misfortune! Can I still breathe after such heavy blows; life becomes insupportable to me; I cannot, nor ought I to, remain any longer in the world, for what can I do in it without seeing you! I have to-day had two unfortunate experiences, of which at present the second seems to me the most cruel, but the first may prove the most terrible. I have fallen out with our old bonhomme, and with Gor too; and, as he told you, if I were to repeat it to those with whom his Highness is displeased, they would be much astonished. Apart from my passion [for you], I know what course I have to take; but, my dear, as I have promised you to do nothing without your consent, I wish to let you know about it beforehand. My intention is to write to him, and to say to him that I was very much annoyed that duty had involved me in a dispute with the person in the world whom I honour most; but, as I had carefully taken note of the words he addressed to me, I had observed at the time that he said [that] if I repeated [it] to all those whom our master holds in contempt, there would be many who would be undeceived; I thought that your Excellency would not be offended, if I asked you to be good enough to inform me privately, whether I am unfortunate enough to have displeased Monseigneur the Elector—in order that I might shape my course accordingly. For hitherto I had served him from affection only, and without any interested motive; and, if I was unfortunate enough to have incurred his disfavour, it would be impossible for me to serve him any longer.^[248] This was, in substance, what I wished to say to him, being aware of your opinion. I can assure you that I positively perceived that his rage directed itself against me. I am surprised at my own patience, and I cannot understand how I managed to control myself, for I had it very often on the tip of my tongue to say to him what I intend to write to him. The second misfortune troubles me a great deal more. I saw your windows open; the Ref[ormer] came out of your dressing-room; without [my] seeing you there, though I raised my voice tolerably high, and passed and repassed; but there was nothing—one could not see a living soul there. I suppose that, as it was late, you were already in the room of the Romaine. I should be inconsolable, if I had not the hope of seeing you this evening at 6 o’clock. To what am I reduced! I count it the greatest good fortune in the world to see you a thousand feet off. In good truth, it will be a great consolation to me if I can have this pleasure. That of writing to you is very dear to me, and I would not give it up for a Kingdom. I fear that my Diabolical destiny will deprive me of it; this would be my finishing stroke. I conjure you, take your measures so well that we may not miss this joy. You know, I hope, through your own self that one would not be able to live without this. Alas! why am I not Reden or Hortense^[249]; so long as you are there, it matters not if you were to hate me. I shall, however, have the joy of seeing her whom I adore; it is our love which takes the one far away from the other; without my love, I should be wherever you are; but because I love you I am in bad repute, I am disregarded, I am forgotten. But never mind; let them spit in my face, I will not take offence at it.

In fear of not being able to speak to you, I take the liberty of expressing to you my concern at the misfortune which has happened to you. God knows that my heart forewarned me of it; but my companion was never willing to wait, although I begged him to do so; but, by way of climax to my ill luck, I have to wait till my intimate friend has had the pleasure with his troublesome companion of an interview with you; it seems to me that I have great reason to complain of the Gods, as they are unjust enough to deprive me of all means of being serviceable to you, while at the same time they furnish such means to those from whom I have most to fear. Since this accident strange things have come into my head, and I am foolish enough to believe that the accident which happened yesterday is a prognostic of my ill luck, and that this is the same man who will be the cause of all these troubles to me. The result will be that I shall have him watched as closely as possible while I am away, and, if I hear the slightest thing, believe me as a man of honour that I will never see you again, and that I would rather seek out the innermost parts of Lapland than appear before those eyes which [once] enchanted me. I detest my companion, for without this I should have had the pleasure of serving you, instead of my seeing this joy in the breast of a man whom I abhor, and who is impertinent enough to come and tell me of it himself, informing me of the condition in which you were, your déshabillement, without a cap, your hair loose over your incomparable bosom. O God, I am too furious to write any more.