{"product_id":"2940013682375","title":"Saraband for Dead Lovers","description":"\"I send with all speed,\" wrote Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orléans,\u003cbr\u003etucked away in her little room surrounded by portraits of ancestors, \"to\u003cbr\u003ewish you, my dearest aunt and Serene Highness, joy of the recent\u003cbr\u003ebetrothal. It will redound to the happiness of Hanover and Zelle. It\u003cbr\u003elinks two dominions which have long possessed for each other the\u003cbr\u003eaffection natural to neighbours, but which now may justly embrace as\u003cbr\u003eallies. It appears to me that no arrangement could well be more suitable,\u003cbr\u003eand I offer to the high contracting parties my sincerest wishes for a\u003cbr\u003econtinuance of their happiness.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Duchess smiled grimly, dashed her quill into the ink, and proceeded\u003cbr\u003ein a more homely manner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Civilities apart, What in heaven's name is the Duke of Hanover about?\u003cbr\u003eThis little Sophie-Dorothée will never do; she is not even legitimate,\u003cbr\u003eand as for her mother, you know as well as I do that Eléonore d'Olbreuse\u003cbr\u003eis nothing better than a French she-poodle to whom uncle George William\u003cbr\u003eof Zelle treated himself when he was younger, I will not say more\u003cbr\u003efoolish, and has never been able to get rid of since. What, with all\u003cbr\u003erespect, was your husband thinking of to bring French blood into a decent\u003cbr\u003eGerman family, and connected with the English throne, too! In brief, my\u003cbr\u003edearest aunt, all this is a mystery to me. I can only presume that it was\u003cbr\u003econcluded over your head, and that money played the chief role. Men, men,\u003cbr\u003emen! Clink a thaler in their ear, and hold a carrot in front of a donkey,\u003cbr\u003eand forward both animals go, with never a blink, down God knows what\u003cbr\u003eprecipice. I do beg of you to write me such details as you have time for,\u003cbr\u003eand to accept my honest hope that a business so ill-judged may not lead\u003cbr\u003eto disaster.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis letter, reaching the Duchess of Hanover immediately after the\u003cbr\u003ewedding, made no very pleasant reading, even allowing for Charlotte's\u003cbr\u003ewell-known trick of looking on the gloomier side of all new\u003cbr\u003erelationships, and particularly of marriage. Its sting lay in the\u003cbr\u003eassumption which permitted the writer to criticise the whole affair with\u003cbr\u003efreedom, and to goad the Duchess under cover of her Duke.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe fact was, the whole match was of Duchess Sophia's making; but with\u003cbr\u003ewhat agonies of troubled pride, what angry tears!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo begin with, the girl Sophia-Dorothea was not exactly illegitimate. She\u003cbr\u003ehad been legitimised some six years before as a result of a bargain\u003cbr\u003estruck between her father and his brother Ernest Augustus, now Duke of\u003cbr\u003eHanover, then Bishop of Osnabruck; after which the official marriage of a\u003cbr\u003emorganatic wife with her ducal husband took place before the wondering\u003cbr\u003eeyes of their daughter, aged ten, who almost at once was swept into the\u003cbr\u003ematrimonial whirlpool with a princeling of Wolfenbüttel. True, this was\u003cbr\u003eonly a betrothal, and the young man was carried off by a cannon-ball soon\u003cbr\u003eafter; but it showed that the Frenchwoman's daughter need not go begging\u003cbr\u003efor suitors.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Court of Hanover, holding aloof from these indecent proceedings, hurt\u003cbr\u003ein the very core of its pride by this admission of a half-commoner to the\u003cbr\u003eprivileges of rank, turned away its eyes, while its ears remained alert\u003cbr\u003efor scandalous gossip. There was little enough, and that little\u003cbr\u003eill-founded. The Frenchwoman was faithful to her Duke, and though tongues\u003cbr\u003emade the most of a letter from a Court page found among the\u003cbr\u003etwelve-year-old Dorothea's lesson books, such jejune displays of\u003cbr\u003edepravity were not satisfying. The Court of Hanover, besides, had\u003cbr\u003eproblems of conduct peculiarly its own.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Duke's mistress, Clara von Platen; what, for instance, of her? She\u003cbr\u003ewas a part of the State furniture. The Duchess ignored her. The fashion\u003cbr\u003ein mistresses had been set by France and England; they were necessities\u003cbr\u003eof the time, they diverted, at some expense, kings' minds from serious\u003cbr\u003ematters; they were decorative often, and kept the arts alive for their\u003cbr\u003eservice. But Platen troubled political waters. Duchess Sophia shrugged,\u003cbr\u003eand wrote high-spirited letters in three languages mocking such impudent\u003cbr\u003ecreatures, together with other contemporary vexing trifles. One thing\u003cbr\u003ealone she did not mock. She set theologians jousting, she stirred\u003cbr\u003ephilosophies with her chocolate-spoon, but genealogy was her God, and she\u003cbr\u003ewould have no lack of reverence there. Her mother had been Bohemia's\u003cbr\u003elovely ramshackle wandering queen, her brother Rupert grew gouty and\u003cbr\u003esullen, a pensioner on the bounty of his English nephew Charles. Perhaps\u003cbr\u003ethe Duke's mistress had never in her life known such straits of poverty\u003cbr\u003eand humiliation as, in her early days, had the Duke's wife.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47069095264496,"sku":"2940013682375","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013682375_p0.jpg?v=1763584298","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013682375","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}