CHAPTER XI.
HISTORY AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE LETTERS.[55]
I, for my part, value letters as the most vital part of biography. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
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Footnote 55:
This chapter is an interpolation dealing with the history and authenticity of the correspondence and does not affect the narrative.
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The original manuscripts of the remarkable correspondence between Sophie Dorothea and Königsmarck, a correspondence unparalleled in the annals of passion, except, perhaps, by the love-letters of Mirabeau to the Marquise de Monnier, are still preserved in the University Library of Lund, in Sweden.
The history of the letters previous to their finding a resting-place at Lund can be traced back through many generations.
It will be noted that the correspondence begins in July, 1691, and ends in December, 1693, thus covering a period of two and a half years. The first few letters of Königsmarck show that he was not quite sure of his footing with the Princess, and the _liaison_ between them was yet in the bud. Within a few months we find his passion not only avowed without disguise, but reciprocated by the Princess with equal ardour. Except for a break in the first part of 1693, the letters follow the period of their love story until the last six months, January to June, 1694. During the greater part of this latter time Königsmarck was at Dresden, and a few days after he returned to Hanover he was assassinated (July 1, 1694). It is known that many letters passed between the Princess and Königsmarck during this last six months, and a bundle of letters were seized by the Hanoverian Government in Königsmarck’s lodgings a few days after his murder. These last letters and probably many others are therefore missing from this correspondence, which otherwise forms a fairly complete record of the Princess’s love story. The pertinent question is, how came the many hereafter published to be preserved?[56]
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Footnote 56:
Those published in this book are all from the collection at Lund. But many more (doubtless those seized by the Hanoverian Government) are stated to exist, unpublished, at Berlin and Gmünden.
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Königsmarck, as we have seen, had two sisters, Amalie Wilhelmina, who married Count Carl Gustav Lewenhaupt, a Swedish nobleman, who held for a time a commission as colonel in the army of the Duke of Celle, and served with the troops of Brunswick-Lüneburg in Flanders, and the beautiful Aurora, who was never married. Aurora was in the confidence of the lovers and on terms of friendship with the Princess. Countess Lewenhaupt must also have been cognisant of the _affaire_, though in a lesser degree. During Königsmarck’s connection with the court of Hanover Aurora resided sometimes at Hamburg, often with him at Hanover, and was occasionally at Celle, Brunswick, and other places, but always circling around the courts of the Brunswick princes. The Countess Lewenhaupt was for the most part with her husband, whose military duties kept him much at Celle; but she frequently met her brother or sister. Both sisters often saw their brother, and between him and them there existed a strong affection.
Aurora sympathised with the love affair between her brother and the Princess, and at quite an early stage we find her aware of it. Letters were often sent through her hands; and so active a part did she play that when suspicion was aroused in the autumn of 1692, Ernest Augustus sent her a message to the effect that she would do well to give Hanover a wide berth in future. For the lovers to keep each other’s letters in their several possession was dangerous, and they were unwilling to burn them. For their safe keeping, therefore, it would seem that both Königsmarck and the Princess deposited at stated periods their letters with Aurora: the Princess giving up those she had received from him, and Königsmarck those he had received from her.[57]
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Footnote 57:
In the Protocol of the trial of Fräulein Knesebeck, she states that she was commanded by the Princess always to return his own letters to Königsmarck, because she herself did not dare to keep them, nor did she think them safe even in the hands of Knesebeck.
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This continued until the end of 1693. In the six months that followed (January to June, 1694) Königsmarck did not see his sisters; he was in Saxony, and they were at Hamburg. The letters he had received from the Princess during that period were still in his possession when he was murdered, and, as we have seen, many were seized by the Government. The letters the Princess had received from him were in _her_ possession, and she probably burned as many as she could on the first hint that everything was discovered. On the other hand, the Hanoverian Government must have seized some, which (with her own) were used against her at the divorce. But the rest—those published here—were in Aurora’s keeping at Hamburg, outside the jurisdiction of the Elector of Hanover.
Of the efforts which both sisters, especially Aurora, made to discover their missing brother, and to bring his assassins to justice, we shall have occasion to speak later. They mourned their brother long and sincerely, and treasured everything connected with his memory. Doubtless these letters were among their most cherished possessions. Aurora, it is well known, led for some years a wandering and adventurous life, and for better security she must have transferred this momentous and bulky correspondence to her sister’s, Countess Lewenhaupt’s, keeping. Count Lewenhaupt, soon after the murder of his brother-in-law, quitted the service of the Duke of Celle, and returned with his wife to Sweden, where he henceforth lived on his estates.
From this time the history of the letters is categorical, and may be traced step by step. Amalie, Countess Lewenhaupt, kept the letters, and on her deathbed gave them to her son, Count Charles Emil Lewenhaupt, telling him to cherish them with great care, as they had cost “her brother his life, and a king’s mother her freedom”. Count Charles Emil Lewenhaupt duly fulfilled his mother’s injunction, and the letters remained among his most carefully guarded possessions all his life. He left two sons, the younger of whom, Adam, inherited Ǒfvedskloster where the letters were then kept. Count Adam Lewenhaupt sold Ǒfvedskloster to his brother-in-law Baron Hans Ramel, who married his sister Amalie Beata. In this way the letters passed into possession of the Ramel family, and they reposed in a chest in the library of Ǒfvedskloster for many years. Amalie Beata, Baroness Ramel (_née_ Lewenhaupt), died in 1810, and at her death bequeathed the letters to her daughter, Elisabeth Sophia Amalie Beata, who was married to Count Gustaf Adolph Sparre. The offspring of this marriage was also a daughter, Christina Amalie Hedvig Adelaide, who married Count Jacob de la Gardie, of Löberöd, the founder of the famous De la Gardie Archives. Count de la Gardie, who was a wealthy nobleman, a bibliophile, and an antiquarian, was greatly interested in these letters, which came into his possession in 1817 through his marriage with the lady aforesaid. Quite apart from their historical value, the way in which they had been handed down through generations of his wife’s family (she was the great-great-granddaughter of Countess Lewenhaupt, _née_ Königsmarck) gave them a personal interest in his eyes. The letters were removed from Ǒfvedskloster to Löberöd, where they formed part of his celebrated collection of books and manuscripts.
It was after the letters came into Count de la Gardie’s possession that their existence became known to the outside world; hitherto they had been treated as family papers of a private nature. The famous collection of archives at Löberöd attracted scholars from far and wide. In 1831 Probster Wiselgein, in his work _De la Gardieska Archivet_ (the De la Gardie Archives), vol. ix., mentions that this correspondence forms part of the archives, and quotes a single letter from the Princess in the original French as a specimen. Two years after this same letter was republished in the _Magazin für Literatur des Auslandes_ (Journal of Foreign Literature), 1833. But the correspondence did not receive much attention until 1847, when Professor Palmblad, of the University of Upsala, in the _Blätter für Literarische Unterhaltung_, published a few short extracts in the original French, together with a brief introduction. This he afterwards republished as an appendix in his historical romance, _Aurora Königsmarck_. To Palmblad’s labours we shall have occasion to refer again.
When Count de la Gardie died he bequeathed his almost priceless collection to different libraries in Sweden. To the University of Lund he left many valuable books and manuscripts, including the correspondence of Sophie Dorothea and Königsmarck. In accordance with the Count’s bequest the letters were deposited in the University Library of Lund in 1848, and they remain there until this day. It is not easy to see how the history of these documents could be better authenticated.[58]
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Footnote 58:
Table showing the descent and ownership of the letters from the time Aurora Königsmarck gave them to her sister until the present day.
Amalie, Countess Lewenhaupt (_née_ Königsmarck), | Count Charles Emil Lewenhaupt (her son), | Count Adam Lewenhaupt (his son), | Amalie Beata Baroness Ramel (his sister), | Countess Sparre (her daughter), | Countess de la Gardie (her daughter), | Count de la Gardie (her husband), | The University Library of Lund, 1848.
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Shortly after the letters were deposited at Lund, J. H. Gadd, who from 1848 to 1850 held the post of assistant-librarian to the university, made a copy of the correspondence. This copy he afterwards sold, or gave, to the late Mrs. Evelyn Everett Green, a lady well known for her historical researches, and who was for many years employed in the State Paper Office. Mrs. Everett Green, who was in correspondence with Count Schulenburg-Klosterrode, author of _Die Herzogin von Ahlden_, apparently thought of publishing these letters, for she began the fragment of a preface. But for some reason she desisted from her task, and in 1870 sold Gadd’s manuscript copy to the British Museum. This copy, in French, bears nothing to show where the original letters are preserved. I discovered by accident that they were at Lund, when at Leipsig in 1898. On communicating with the university authorities at Lund I found that none of them had any knowledge of the manuscript copy in the British Museum, and they seemed doubtful of its genuineness. I therefore made a journey to Lund for the purpose of consulting the original manuscripts, and found that the copy in the British Museum was on the whole a faithful one. At Lund, too, I was able to trace the history of the letters and to examine in detail the documents.
It would be hard to find a more fitting resting-place for these letters than the university library of Lund. Nestling under the shadow of the great cathedral, surrounded by the elms and limes of the beautiful Lundagård, the old library seems to breathe the very spirit of the past. In the silent rooms, with their mellow tomes and paintings of dead and gone worthies, there reigns a profound peace, in strong contrast to the riotous passion, the fret and the fume, the rapture and despair, which run through these records of an ill-fated love, and make them human documents indeed. As we read, the hopes and the fears, the joys and the struggles of the unlucky lovers rise before us with extraordinary vividness. The writers live and move and breathe again; the air is peopled with their presence; and then—we look up from the page and come back to the old library and the great stillness, and realise something of the littleness of human passions beside the passionless flight of time. Two centuries have gone; the lovers are dead; the hands that penned these burning words, the eyes that wept, the hearts that throbbed as they were written, have crumbled into dust. But their witness is here—here in these old and faded pages, which breathe even now, faint as the scent of dead rose leaves, the perfume of their passion.
A word now as to the outward semblance of these letters. They are fairly well preserved, the paper being for the most part of a tough though flimsy nature, which in places shows the handwriting through. The ink is dim and faded to a dull brown; here and there it is so faint as to be almost illegible. Königsmarck’s letters differ in size, some being written on the ordinary notepaper of the day, others on scraps torn apparently from a pocket-book; some, too, are weather-stained, as though they had travelled far. Envelopes in all cases are missing; nor were they generally used in those days. The letter was folded and sealed. Some of Königsmarck’s letters bear his seal in red or black wax, and a device—a little heart within a large one—with the motto, _Cosi fosse il vostro dentro il mio_. One, in addition, has the ends of a green silk ribbon under the seal, showing how the letter was tied. The seal represents a flaming heart on an altar, the sun shining down upon it with the circumscription, _Rien d’impure m’allume_. One, bearing date, Halle, August 3/13, is addressed to “Madamoiselle la Frole de Knesbeck, à Zelle”; one is addressed “à la Gouvernante,” one merely “Pour la Personne Connue,” one “la Frole de Kronbugler”; but there are none directly addressed to the Princess. All Königsmarck’s letters are written in the same great sprawling hand.
The letters of the Princess are written on paper of good quality, and almost without exception of uniform size. Like Königsmarck’s, they bear evidence of having been folded; but the envelopes are missing, and, unlike his, none of them bear seal or superscription. They are written in two distinct handwritings, possibly three, which bears out the theory that some were written by the Princess in her own hand, some in her handwriting disguised,[59] and the rest by Knesebeck at the Princess’s dictation. But, disguised or undisguised, transcribed by Knesebeck or the Princess, they are easier to read than Königsmarck’s, on account of their better penmanship, though occasionally they, too, show traces of haste.
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Footnote 59:
Fräulein Knesebeck in the Protocol of her trial expressly states that the Princess was able to write two different hands.
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The letters number over two hundred, and form two bulky packets. With the exception of a few fragments of German poetry which Königsmarck quotes here and there, they are all in French, that being the language then generally used at courts, and especially by the Princess, on account of her French mother and education. To Königsmarck—a Swedish noble by birth—French was more familiar than German, though his knowledge of either was far from perfect. The letters are arranged in little or no chronological order, and run in batches; thus we have first a batch of the Princess’s letters, then a batch of Königsmarck’s, then another of the Princess’s, and finally another batch from Königsmarck. Quite two-thirds are written by Königsmarck and the rest by the Princess—if we except two or three brief notes, or rather postscripts from Knesebeck.
If the lovers’ letters differ in outward appearance, they differ even more in style and diction. Königsmarck’s are very badly written, ill-spelt, and often ungrammatical, which may be explained by the fact that he was writing in a foreign language which, though he could speak it fluently, he had not thoroughly mastered. Often, by accident or design, he falls back on phonetic spelling of French words, which at first renders them almost impossible to decipher, and it is only by reading them aloud that one can grasp their meaning. For instance:—
_Saite_ = Cette _Can_ = Quand _Sansaire_ = Sincere _Cas_ = Qua _Astor_ = À cette heure
and many other renderings equally erratic. Königsmarck’s style, like his handwriting, was rough-and-ready. Many of his letters were written in haste when on active military service, and one does not expect literary grace from a soldier writing often under difficulties, and always in a foreign language. His sentences are abrupt, and frequently broken by exclamations, interjections, and interrogations, especially when he writes under stress of excitement. But he has a knack of occasionally enforcing his meaning by a happy phrase or homely illustration, and this, combined with frequent allusions to men and things, makes his letters of more general interest than those of the Princess. Egotism is the dominant note. His wit has at times a knack of degenerating into coarseness—a coarseness so great that even in that coarse age we cannot help wondering how a man in his position should be found writing such things to a princess, to a woman he loved and reverenced. But we have to remember that it was an age of licence and freedom of speech; and even the letters of the estimable Electress Sophia to the Duchess of Orleans, whose virtues were unquestioned, and whose intellectual accomplishments were far in advance of her time, were disfigured by a coarseness bordering at times on indecency. If a great princess could so write to another princess we cease to wonder at Königsmarck, who was a man and a soldier and surrounded by the licentiousness of camp and court. Most of his worst lapses are anecdotes relating to his companions in arms; they are not many, and I have taken the liberty of suppressing them, since they are not germane to the narrative.
The letters of the Princess are very different in style and diction from those of her lover. They are absolutely free from coarseness (in this respect offering a favourable contrast, for instance, to the letters of the Electress Sophia and the Duchess of Orleans), and give evidence of a refined and gentle nature. They are in admirable French, and if here and there a word is misspelt it is evidently the result of haste. Many of the Princess’s letters are written with grace of style and felicity of diction, to which no translation can do justice. The burden of her theme is ever “I love thee,” or “Thou art not true to me”. The whole of the correspondence, indeed, both her letters and Königsmarck’s, are alternated with passionate avowals of love or equally passionate reproaches. Theirs was not a love that ran smoothly, but was broken from first to last by fears from without and jealousies from within. Yet it is impossible not to see that, after their manner, each loved the other fondly.
The Princess was a ready writer, the chief blemish of her letters being a tendency to repetition and an extraordinary diffuseness; she would take pages to say what might have been compressed into a few sentences. But this is a fault common to love-letters—which are not written for the edification of the world, but only for the one to whom they are addressed; and we must not judge them by the ordinary canons of literary criticism. In the Princess’s case, too, there was often a necessity for her to wrap her meaning in a cloud of words, lest it should be too readily discovered, if her epistles fell into other hands. Though her letters are in two (or three) handwritings, they are all identical in style and expression—another proof that those the Princess did not write with her own hand, disguised or undisguised, she dictated word for word to Knesebeck.
An elaborate cypher, or rather series of cyphers, is used throughout the correspondence for the names of persons and places. To this cypher the lovers alone held the key. All the personages mentioned in the letters are disguised under different names; as, for instance:—
_L’Aventurière_ Countess Aurora Königsmarck. _Le Réformeur_ (_Le Réformateur_) Prince George Louis. _Don Diégo_ The Elector Ernest Augustus. _La Romaine_ The Electress Sophia. _Le Grondeur_ The Duke of Celle. _La Pedagogue_ The Duchess of Celle. _La Perspective_ The Countess Platen. _La Boule_ The Electress of Brandenburg. _Le bon Homme_ Marshal Podevils. _L’Innocent_ Prince Ernest Augustus. _Colin_ Prince Maximilian. _La Marionette_ Princess of Hesse. _Le Satyre_ } Hanoverian Ministers. _Le Barbouilleur_ } _La Douairière_ The Princess of East Friesland. _La Gazelle_ Countess von Lewenhaupt. _La Grosse Dondon_ Madame von Ilten. _La Confidente_ } _La Sentinelle_ } Fräulein von Knesebeck. _La Gouvernante_ } _Léonisse_ } _La Cœur Gauche_ } Princess Sophie Dorothea. _La Petite Louche_ } _Le Chevalier_ } _Tercis_ } Königsmarck.
Some of these nicknames are not very complimentary to the persons for whom they are intended, but they are comparatively easy to decipher. The task is much more difficult when we come to the other cypher, in figures. Speaking roughly, numbers of one hundred and upwards signify names of men; two hundred and upwards, names of women; three hundred and upwards, names of places. As for example:—
100 Elector Ernest Augustus. 101 Duke of Celle. 102 Prince George Louis. 103 Marshal Podevils. 112 Prince Maximilian. 120 Königsmarck. 128 Bülow. 129 Bernstorff.
200 The Electress Sophia. 201 Princess Sophie Dorothea. 202 Countess Platen. 207 Fräulein von Schulenburg. 214 Fräulein von Knesebeck. 226 Countess Aurora Königsmarck. 227 The Duchess of Celle.
300 Hanover. 301 Luisburg. 302 Herrenhausen. 305 Celle. 306 Brockhausen.
In the letters which follow, translated from the French of the original manuscripts into English, I have endeavoured to render this intricate cypher legible, and have substituted everywhere the real names of persons and places. The task of translation and unravelling the cypher has not been easy,[60] and if an error should be discovered it must not be ascribed to any inaccuracy in the original letters, but to my rendering, since in spite of every care it is impossible to guard against the possibility of a chance error. I have further endeavoured to reduce the letters to something like chronological order—also a difficult task, for only four have the year inscribed, many are without date, some have the day of the week, and a few the time of day; and in such cases it is only from the text that one can guess the dates with accuracy. To do this it has been necessary to sort the letters from the batches into which they are divided in the original manuscripts, and to allow them to answer one another in due order. In the correspondence during the campaign of 1692, for instance, it will be seen that Königsmarck’s letters and those of the Princess answer one another freely. I have also, to better elucidate the text and preserve the flow of the narrative, interspersed the letters with a record of current events gleaned from Colt’s despatches and other documents, and have annotated them where necessary. The letters hereafter given represent two-thirds of the whole; the remainder has been omitted simply because it is made up mainly of repetition and unimportant details, and to quote it in full would be to weary and not to edify. For the first time these letters are published in any language—if we except the few fragments (which would not make more than six pages of this book) given by Palmblad in a Swedish book long since out of print—and for the first time they are now translated into English from the original manuscripts, edited, and compared and tested with contemporary records.
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Footnote 60:
In this task I was aided by the fragment of a key to the cypher found with the letters at Lund.
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[Illustration:
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, LUND, SWEDEN. (_Where the letters are preserved._) ]
Palmblad, as we have mentioned, prefaced his extracts with a brief introduction, which it is well to examine in detail, since this is practically the only medium through which the existence of the correspondence has hitherto been known.
W. F. Palmblad was a man of considerable literary repute, a professor of the University of Upsala, and a zealous antiquarian. But he lacked one quality indispensable to the historian—accuracy; he was too ready to jump to conclusions without first verifying his facts from contemporary records. He examined the manuscript letters when they were at Löberöd in the possession of the Count de la Gardie, and learned their history from their owner, which was amply verified from the family records. He then made an examination of the correspondence which can only be regarded as cursory, took out a few extracts here and there, and prefaced them with an introduction, in which he declares his firm belief in the genuineness of the letters, but by his inaccuracies unconsciously does damage to the very point he labours to prove—inaccuracies which one or two subsequent writers have seized upon as proofs of the spuriousness of a correspondence they have never seen. Later, it is true, another authority, Count Schulenburg-Klosterrode, who also believed in the genuineness of the letters, in _Die Herzogin von Ahlden_, endeavoured to set Palmblad right on certain points of chronology and cypher, but a false impression had been given of the correspondence which it was not easy to eradicate.
Even in his description of the appearance of the letters Palmblad is inaccurate. He speaks of postmarks, but there are none visible; he describes the Princess’s letters as written “in an elegant hand, on very fine, gilt-edged paper”. It is a mere detail; but the paper is not gilt-edged, and is the ordinary letter-paper of the day; while as for the “elegant hand,” which would convey the idea of a sloping Italian penmanship, the Princess’s letters are in two distinct handwritings, and in each case written in rather a bold hand for a woman, certainly the reverse of “elegant”.
The professor has also made mistakes about the cypher, especially the cypher in numbers; and in the extracts he publishes he has muddled men, women, and places in a hopeless manner, and this makes nonsense. His extracts, which are taken mainly from Königsmarck’s letters, are chiefly made up of the racy anecdotes, which for reasons already given I do not quote. The professor has collected every one of these anecdotes (not many in all), and gives them as a fair specimen of the whole. Doubtless this course avoided chronological and other difficulties; but to quote them to the exclusion of other and more important matter is to give a false impression of the correspondence and the man.
Again, Palmblad makes the assertion, “Of Königsmarck’s _liaison_ with the Countess Platen the letters do not say a word”. Here again it is evident he has made a mistake in the cypher, and confused the Countess with some one else, for, as will be seen, the letters teem with allusions to Countess Platen (either as _La Perspective_ or as 202), and there are frequent references to an understanding or flirtation between her and Königsmarck. The Princess is again and again inflamed with jealousy on this account, and reproaches her lover bitterly, while he is equally fluent with his excuses.
But the gravest inaccuracy is yet to come. In his survey of the letters Palmblad made no attempt to classify them or arrange them in order of date—a task which he declares to be “impossible”. As he had little knowledge of Hanoverian history at the time the letters were written, or of contemporary events, the task was doubtless impossible to him; he would therefore have done wisely to have left it alone altogether, and not have tried to cover his ignorance by the wildest guesswork. Yet this is what he has done. He says: “In one letter mention is made of Bussche, who was the trusty friend and confidant of Prince George, and who died in the beginning of the year 1688, and four other letters have the year 1693 given, so we know with certainty that the correspondence was spread over a period of six years”. And again: “In the letter in which Bussche is mentioned, therefore, written before or during the year 1687, Königsmarck is on the most trusted footing with the Princess; and in the year 1685 Königsmarck was evidently in Hanover; and soon after that it appears that the very close intimacy between them began. The Princess, her daughter, who afterwards married the King of Prussia, was born March 16, 1686;[61] and it is a matter of surmise and strong doubt whether the family of Prussian kings spring from the Guelph or Königsmarck blood.” The whole of this theory is built upon the surmise that the Bussche mentioned (not in one letter only, but at least a dozen) was the same Bussche who married Countess Platen’s sister, and who died early in 1688.
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Footnote 61:
This is an error, she was born in 1687.
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Now the Bussche family was a numerous one, and held a high position in Hanover. If Palmblad had read the letters carefully, and had possessed any knowledge of Hanoverian affairs, he would have seen from the context that the Bussche mentioned was _not_ the man who died in 1688, but Philip Albert Bussche, a privy councillor and prominent minister, who later was president of the divorce court which pronounced judgment on the Princess. Thus the statement that the letters began in, or before, 1687 and extended over a period of six years is absolutely incorrect, and the endeavour to cast a slur upon the legitimacy of the Princess’s daughter, afterwards Queen of Prussia, is consequently abortive. There exists no shred of evidence to show that Königsmarck was in Hanover in 1685 (he was in England), nor, indeed, until 1688, a year after the birth of the Princess’s daughter. And it will be seen from the letters themselves that the _affaire_ between Königsmarck and the Princess did not assume an intimate footing until the end of 1691 or the beginning of 1692; until then the borderland had not been crossed. Whatever were his later relations with the Princess, he was neither at Hanover nor Celle when her children were born, and there is no doubt as to their legitimacy. Palmblad’s slur on the birth of the Queen of Prussia is as gross a fabrication as the Jacobite lie of calling George II. “the little Königsmarck”. The whole theory, which can only have been invented to gratify Palmblad’s hatred of the House of Prussia, therefore falls to the ground; and it is no wonder that, starting from so false a chronological point, he finds it “impossible” to arrange the letters in any order of date.
I have dwelt fully on Palmblad’s introduction and extracts not because of its merit, which is little, nor its size, which is infinitesimal, but because it has hitherto been practically the only publication which deals with these letters, and students and historians have had no other criterion whereby they might test their genuineness. There were the original letters at Lund, it is true; but the few authorities such as Schaumann and Köcher,[62] who have passed adverse judgment on this correspondence, never took the trouble to go there and examine the manuscripts personally, but founded their theories on Palmblad’s version. Yet it is obviously impossible to pronounce a fair judgment on a correspondence of this kind without seeing the original manuscripts, and with no knowledge of it save a few fragmentary extracts and an introduction full of chronological and other errors. It is only by examining the whole correspondence in the original manuscripts, and comparing it with contemporary documents, that a just idea of its value can be gained.
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Footnote 62:
Against the adverse opinion of these authorities may fairly be set Thackeray and Carlyle, who accept the letters as genuine. But, like Schaumann and Köcher, they never saw the originals.
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Judged by this test, these letters will reveal themselves as absolutely genuine, and further examination will show that they contain internal evidence of their authenticity. Let us briefly glance at this also.
For our present purpose the correspondence may be divided into:—
1. Königsmarck’s letters to the Princess prior to the campaign in Flanders of 1692 (July, 1691, to June, 1692).
2. The Princess and Königsmarck’s letters to one another during the campaign in Flanders and until the granting of the Hanoverian Electorate (June to December, 1692).
3. The Princess and Königsmarck’s letters to one another, when she was at Brockhausen and Celle with her parents, and he at Hanover (June to July, 1693).
4. Königsmarck’s letters to the Princess when he was campaigning against the Danes and after his return to Hanover (August to December, 1693).
This is merely a rough classification, but it will serve.
The times were stirring in the courts of Hanover and Celle, and indeed in all Europe, because of the war of the great Alliance against Louis XIV. Königsmarck served with the allied armies in the campaign in Flanders of 1692, as colonel of a Hanoverian regiment, and the following year he served as colonel of a regiment of the troops of Hanover and Celle in the abortive campaign of the Brunswick-Lüneburg princes against the Danes on the banks of the Elbe. Many of his letters to the Princess were written when on active military service; and though one does not look to love-letters for news, it is only to be expected there should be some allusion to current events. We find in Königsmarck’s letters from Flanders mention of William of Orange, Prince George Louis, the Elector of Bavaria, Duke Frederick Augustus of Saxony (afterwards the Elector Augustus the Strong), and other exalted personages who were with the allied armies at that time; also of certain events in the campaign, such as the battle of Steinkirk, the attempted siege of Charleroy, and so forth. In the same way, the following year, during the campaign against the Danes, allusion is made to the burning of Ratzeburg and the negotiations between the Danes and the Brunswick-Lüneburg princes. The same may be said of the Hanoverian intrigues for obtaining the electorate. If these mentions of well-known persons and events were in any way incorrect, it would afford, of course, strong presumption against the genuineness of the letters; but they are quite accurate. Moreover, the allusions are made evidently without design, and arise naturally and casually in the course of the correspondence as things known, not only to the writer, but for the most part to the person to whom he is writing.
It may be admitted that, so far, this does not prove much, for the events and personages in connection with the great campaign in Flanders, for instance, were so well known that only a clumsy forger would make a mistake. But the case is far otherwise when we come to analyse the many references which both the Princess and Königsmarck freely make concerning the persons who figure in the life of Hanover and Celle, and incidents which were occurring from day to day in those little courts. We have, for instance, frequent mention of, or allusion to, the arrival of this prince, or the departure of that princess, the coming and going of foreign envoys, and the movements of the Hanoverian court from Hanover to Luisburg, or Luisburg to Hanover or Herrenhausen; of the perpetual motion of the court of Celle from Celle to Brockhausen, to Epsdorff, to Wienhausen, to Göhre, and so on; of visits between the ducal brothers, of journeys to Hamburg, Brunswick, or Berlin, of carnivals and court festivities, all of which could not possibly have been written except by some person, or persons, intimately acquainted, or connected, with the daily life of these petty courts. Now, a forger of spurious love-letters would certainly avoid frequent reference to minute events, and content himself with writing mere vague avowals of passion[63] which might be written by any one to any one; in short, he would keep to generalities and avoid particularities, which are so many pitfalls into which he might tumble, and by his errors betray his fraud.
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Footnote 63:
The letter of Lassaye, quoted on pp. 73-74, affords an excellent illustration of this.
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Here, then, we have a test. If the frequent references to persons and incidents in these letters can be proved to be incorrect or inaccurate; if, for instance, it can be shown that when the Electress of Brandenburg is said to have been visiting Hanover she was at Berlin, that when Prince Max is stated to have been at Celle he was in Italy, that when the court of Celle was at Brockhausen it was at Epsdorff, that when the Princess writes from Celle she was at Hanover, that when certain envoys are represented as having been at Hanover they were not there, or certain festivities are described which did not take place,—if it can be shown that these things (of no importance in themselves, but very important in their bearing on the letters) are falsely and inaccurately stated, then it follows, as a matter of logic, that the letters are themselves false and inaccurate and could not have been written by the persons from whom they profess to come. But if, on the other hand, it can be proved by independent testimony and “undesigned coincidences” (as Paley would say) that the mention of persons is accurate and the allusions to even minute events correct in every detail, it affords the strongest possible proof of the genuineness and authenticity of the letters.
But how to apply such a test?
At first sight this is difficult, for the daily life of these little German courts is not a matter of history, and the ordinary historical records shed little light upon it. Fortunately I found in the State Paper Office, in London, the despatches and entry book of Sir William Dutton Colt, sometime English envoy at Hanover, which furnish exactly what we want—independent and authoritative documents with which we may test the accuracy of many of the minute events mentioned in these letters. Colt was envoy to the princes of Brunswick from 1689 to 1693; his entry book covers the period from July, 1689, to December, 1692, so that the period of eighteen months only is coincident with the letters, which do not begin until July, 1691. Early in January, 1693, he went to Dresden, and afterwards was but little at Hanover or Celle, so further evidence is lacking. But there is enough for our purpose. In Colt’s entry book we have a record, week by week, almost day by day, of the courts of Hanover and Celle; it is wholly made up of copies of his despatches to the English Government. At his death the book, with other official documents, was sent to London, and has since been preserved in the archives. It was, of course, never seen by any one in Hanover outside the English Legation, and it has only been open to the public in England since the Home Office and Foreign Office papers of that period were removed to the State Paper Office. It is scarcely necessary, therefore, to say that between this official record and the correspondence now at Lund there could have been no possible collusion. By no possibility could the writers of these letters have seen Colt’s despatches. Where coincidences arise they are absolutely undesigned, and the points of agreement are those which necessarily occur when truthful and independent records touch on the same incidents. Colt’s despatches are a record of facts and events; the love-letters of Sophie Dorothea and Königsmarck are love-letters first of all, and where mention is made of persons and events, it is made incidentally and secondarily. Nevertheless, many coincidences occur and afford strong corroboration of the genuineness of the letters. I have noted them in more detail in the correspondence itself. Here it will suffice to quote a few in illustration of my meaning:—
_The Letters._ _Colt’s Despatches._
On and after June 20, 1692, the “The Duke of Celle is now at Princess dates her letters from Brockhausen.”—Colt’s _Despatch_, Brockhausen, showing that her June 17, 1692. parents, with whom she was staying, had moved thither from Celle.
In her letter of June 23, 1692, In his despatches of this time the Princess mentions that Prince Colt also mentions that Prince Max Max is staying with the court of was staying with the Duke of Celle Celle at Brockhausen. at Brockhausen, he being in disgrace with his father because of the Moltke affair.
“You have been dancing at Colt’s From Colt’s _Despatch_, Hanover, _fête_.”—_Königsmarck to the June 20, 1692, we learn that on Princess_, Venlo, July 5/15. Sunday, the 18th, he gave a great “diversion,” which the Duke and Duchess and all the court attended.
“I am grieved you are displeased because I went to Monsieur Colt’s _fête_, but I could not avoid going; they pressed me so much.”—_The Princess to Königsmarck_, Brockhausen, (?) July 2, 1692.
“What was the day of the _fête_?”—_Königsmarck to the Princess_, Dist, July 5/15. “Sunday was the _fête_ I spoke to you about.”—_The Princess to Königsmarck_, Celle, July 13/23, 1692.
“They say the Electress of “Moltke was executed on Monday, Brandenburg is at Luisburg on a and the court of Hanover has gone visit to her parents.”—_The to Luisburg to be out of the Princess to Königsmarck_, Celle, way.”—Colt’s _Despatch_, Hanover, July 18/28, 1692. July 18, 1692.
“The floods still detain us here “The extraordinary floods have kept unfortunately.”—_The Princess to the Duke from Celle.”—Colt’s Königsmarck_, July 2, 1692. _Despatch_, July 4, 1692.
“We start to-morrow for “The Duke since his return Celle.”—_The Princess to hither....”—Colt’s _Despatch_, Königsmarck_, Brockhausen, July 7, Celle, July 11, 1692. 1692.
Her next letter, July 9, is dated from Celle.
“My Lord Portland showed me much Colt mentions in his despatches favour, and assured me the King that Lord Portland was with the held me in his King in Flanders during the esteem.”—_Königsmarck to the campaign of 1692. Princess_, Wavern, August 14/24, 1692.
“The Duke of Celle has lost a “The Duke here is really very much great many men [in the Battle of troubled for the loss of his troops Steinkirk].”—_Königsmarck to the in the late action.”—Colt’s Princess_, from the camp near _Despatch_, Celle, August 5, 1692. Wavern, about August 5, 1692.
The Princess, to Königsmarck, in a “This court [Celle] will the next letter from Celle, August 6/16, week remove from hence, the Duke to 1692, notifies the movements of the follow his hunting, and the Duchess court, and says in two days she goes to Wiesbaden, near Mayence, will accompany her mother to for her health.”—Colt’s _Despatch_, Wiesbaden (which she does). Celle, August 5, 1692.
“Max is going the day after “The Electress of Brandenburg is to-morrow to meet the Electress of passing by here on her way to Brandenburg, and will accompany her Luisburg, where the Hanoverian to Luisburg.”—_The Princess to court is at a country Königsmarck_, Celle, August 6/16, house.”—Colt’s _Despatch_, Celle, 1692. August 12, 1692.
“They tell me the Electress of “Just now we have the news that Brandenburg has postponed her the Electress of Brandenburg doth visit. She was to have arrived two not come so soon as she intended, days after I left. All the horses all things having been provided for were ordered for her equipage. The her.”—Colt’s _Despatch_, Celle, Duke had given up to her his August 12/22, 1692. apartments at Luisburg, and they also brought a band. All that for nothing!”—_The Princess to Königsmarck_, Wiesbaden, August 21/31, 1692.
“My news from your part of the In his despatch, September 15, world [Hanover] tells me the Duke 1692, Colt mentions that the Duke is going to hunt at Epsdorff, where of Celle is at Epsdorff. your father already is.” —_Königsmarck to the Princess_, Denise, September 10/20, 1692.
“I was hindered the day before “We have just heard the welcome yesterday from finishing my letter news that the French have failed in by the alarm that the French were their design on Charleroy.”—Colt’s going to attack Charleroy, but it _Despatch_, Göhre, October 7/17, came to nothing.”—_Königsmarck to 1692. the Princess_, Afflegen, October 6/16, 1692.
“The journey to Berlin will not “The journey to Berlin is take place.”—_Königsmarck to the postponed.”—Colt’s _Despatch_, Princess_, Hanover, November, 1692. Hanover, November 18, 1692.
These few coincidences, examples of many more, afford proofs of the genuineness of the correspondence, which a perusal of it as a whole cannot fail to strengthen. The very faults of the letters go to prove their authorship. But the strongest evidence of all, in my opinion, is to be found in the frequent, and unconscious, self-revelations of the personality of the writers. These revelations do not always show the lovers in the most favourable light, but at least they are very human. Love has been defined as _l’égoïsme à deux_. If that be true, it would be hard to find a stronger illustration of it than these letters afford.