Sophia Dorothea, without taking her congé, drove off to Celle with the marks of her husband’s fingers on her throat and throwing herself at her father’s feet, implored him to demand a divorce for her and to provide her with a separate maintenance.
She could have chosen no moment more unfortunate for such an appeal. George William, impoverished by the campaigns against King Louis in Flanders and with an as yet unsettled indemnity to Denmark hanging over his head, was at his wits’ end for money. Sophia Dorothea and her mother Eleonore might harass him with their tears and their prayers, he had not the means to content them. And with Bernstorff always at his elbow, he had not the will.
“Wives must be obedient to their husbands,” he said sententiously. “You must go back to Hanover and your children, my daughter, and take for your example that great lady, the Electress Sophia. Does she fill the air with complaints of the Countess von Platen? No! She accepts her with a proper dignity.”
All his old idolatry of his daughter had gone from him. His wife could no longer move him. They meant vexation and discomfort and troubled days and spoilt all the enjoyment of hunting. He was the weak man stubborn and worked himself up into a great heat of indignation against the intolerance of Sophia Dorothea.
“Go home,” he cried. “And be dutiful! There is a sad name for such wives as you.”
“Iphigenia,” said his daughter, and by no other word could she have done to herself so much hurt.
She was trundled back over that heart-breaking road from Celle to Hanover as poor as when she came. Her great dowry belonged to the Treasury of the Elector. The painted cottage in Arcadia had dwindled into a shack in a land of dreams.
XXXI. GOSSIP FROM DRESDEN
MONSIEUR DE LA Cittardie had returned from Dresden. Monsieur de la Cittardie belonged to a curious small class amongst the lesser noblemen which has no parallel today. Possessed of a respectable name and a small allowance or income, they wandered from capital city to capital city in search of a job at Court. Baron de Pollnitz, he of the Memoirs and the Letters, is the outstanding example. Monsieur de la Cittardie followed a long way behind. He had not so far been very fortunate, although he nursed a hope that by clinging to the skirts of Clara von Platen he would sooner or later be wafted into the Paradise of office-holders. To such a man the deaths of the Elector George of Saxony and his mistress the Countess von Roolitz within the same fortnight offered a compelling allurement. George’s brother Frederick Augustus succeeded unexpectedly and the Court suffered a complete transformation. Monsieur de la Cittardie hurried to Dresden and following the usual procedure sent a letter to the Chamberlain petitioning for a presentation to the new Elector. Monsieur de la Cittardie’s credentials were satisfactory and his petition was granted. His address was polite, he ate heartily and could sit in his chair drunk when most of his neighbours were under the table. These were great qualifications for admission to Court circles and Monsieur de la Cittardie found himself a welcome guest at the feasts and entertainments which accompanied the inauguration of the new Elector. But the glittering prize of a small office with big perquisites was still withheld from him; and he returned to Hanover with nothing to show for his labours but a rounding of the tub of his corpulence and a poison bag of chronicles. He carried them both to Madame von Platen at Monplaisir on the night of Saturday the thirtieth of June.
It happened that only a small party was assembled there, Clara von Platen herself, Madame Weyke, once Catherine Marie Busche and George Louis’s mistress but now married to a General in the Hanoverian army, Ermengarde von Schulenberg, and a few gentlemen of the Court, Baron Stubenfol, Monsieur Chauvet and Captain Harrenburg being amongst them. For a time Monsieur de la Cittardie kept the company on tenterhooks. It was clear from his smiles and his grimaces that he had some fine scandals to relate. But he was giving himself importance by withholding them, and he described with a detail which exasperated his audience the splendour of the late Elector’s obsequies, and the magnificence of the new Elector’s inauguration. Finally he let fall as though it were a matter of no consequence, the remark to which all this while he had been leading.
“Count Philip Königsmark was in high favour.”
Clara von Platen sat forward with a quite definite little jerk. After peace had been made with Denmark, the Hanoverian troops had marched back from the Elbe, but Philip had obtained leave and was not with his regiment. Rumours that he had stayed in Hamburg, that he had travelled to Berlin, that he was seeking to make his peace in Sweden with his offended King, had been flying about the Town. Here was the first authentic news.
“So he was in Dresden,” said Clara von Platen slowly, “and in high favour, you say?”
“The Elector invited him to return to the army of Saxony with the rank of Major-General,” said Monsieur de la Cittardie with a sly smile.
Clara’s face suddenly flushed even through its enamelled mask of white and red. She was close upon her fiftieth year, and though still rapacious for lovers, she found it more and more difficult to assemble them about her. At one time they must lose their money at her card table before they could win her favour. That stage in her amatory history had been passed. As Monsieur de la Cittardie, whose tongue spared no one, said, the only Ombre she asked for now from a lover was his shadow on the wall of her bedroom. She was indeed forced to contemplate yet a third stage when she would pay for the satisfaction of her passions either by services at Court or in cash down. And in this contemplation she had bethought herself of Philip Königsmark. He was clean out of favour, penniless and harassed by debts. It would be a triumph to have that pretty fellow dangling behind her like a lap dog on a lead; and it would be the bitterest sort of humiliation for the hated Sophia Dorothea. She had taken care through her obedient friend Bernstorff that the Princess should not get from her father the means to relieve Philip in his necessity, and lo! He had found a way out of his troubles for himself! A Major-General in the army of Saxony with the perquisites and pay attaching to that command! Could anything be more provoking? No wonder that the enamel cracked!
“A Major-General!” she exclaimed angrily. “God bless my soul, I must petition for a regiment for my scullion.”
“But Philip Königsmark refused the appointment,” said Monsieur de la Cittardie smoothly.
“Refused it?”
Clara von Platen’s eyes narrowed. Then Philip had found a gold mine somewhere else or — or — and she disliked the alternative even more intensely — or he chose bankruptcy and the love of his mistress to a comfortable living at the beck and call of Clara.
“It seems that he prefers the air of Hanover,” said Monsieur de la Cittardie, “to the air of Dresden.”
“Yes he went to Dresden,” argued Madame von Platen.
“His friend the new Elector owed him thirty thousand crowns from a bout at Bassette a year ago in Brussels.”
“Did Königsmark collect them?”
Cittardie shook his head and Clara von Platen drew a breath of relief.
“The moment was not auspicious,” said Cittardie. “His Highness acknowledged the debt in the handsomest way. But he had just buried his brother with all the splendour suitable to the occasion. And he had just been enthroned as Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. The Treasury was empty. However the little Philip, as you used pleasantly to call him, was luxuriously entertained. There was one supper party which obtained a great celebrity in Dresden. I had the good fortune to be invited to it...” and Monsieur de la Cittardie broke off with a look of consternation. “Oh no, that is neither here nor there. My foolish tongue runs away with me.”
At once, as Monsieur de la Cittardie had foreseen, his audience was in a fever to hear the account of this famous supper party.
“Oh, no, no!” cried Cittardie. “I couldn’t! Upon my soul I couldn’t. A trumpery affair, ladies! And not fit for your delicate ears!”
He looked at Madame von Platen and from her to Mademoiselle Ermengarde von Schulenberg in such a fright that both were sure t
hat they had been roughly handled in the conversation.
“But you said that the party was famous in Dresden,” they exclaimed.
“Did I?” Cittardie asked, more confused than ever. “Did I now? Well, no doubt the gossips made the most of it. And after all, it was the Elector himself who was to blame. Everybody had drunk too much, and Count Königsmark was in great distress. There are reasons, are there not, why, if he could not get money, he should be a trifle overbalanced? Certainly I was surprised... But I must not say more... He had been received with great kindness at Monplaisir. Yes, that’s why I was puzzled. Such a singular quittal! But upon my soul, I must say no more.” He looked up and saw the placid face of Ermengarde disturbed with the effort to follow the devious track of his conversation.
“And Mademoiselle!” he cried as though at that moment he had first become aware of her presence. “Mademoiselle who has always had a pleasant word for people behind their backs! Mademoiselle with the many friends and herself all kindness. Why?” and he spread out his hands. “Now why should she suffer from any man’s tongue? No, you see, I can say nothing. The supper party! Let us forget it.”
Monsieur Chauvet sniggered. He was not very pleased that Cittardie should hold the stage so long.
“Yes. Obviously gentlemen of breeding would find it quite impossible to repeat the words spoken on so private an occasion.”
Monsieur de la Cittardie who was dying to repeat, and indeed with embellishments, a little more than anyone had said at the famous supper party, pursed up his lips.
“Private?” said he. “Ah, private. I wonder. It was certainly all over the town the next morning. ‘Madame von Platen!’ they said. ‘Why should that great lady take to heart a few salty innuendoes?’”
The great lady, however, did take them to heart and insisted that Monsieur de la Cittardie should tell his story without delay.
It was an age when reticence was held in small repute. Men babbled of their triumphs and lied about their defeats and toasted their mistresses by name. Women were as frank. There was no stigma upon the woman with many lovers. Duchess Sophia, who reputation was unsullied, received Clara von Platen without hesitation and Duchess Sophia’s daughter the Electress of Brandenburg could not count her affairs of the heart upon her ten fingers. And all the world talked. Hanover talked of Paris and Vienna and Berlin and Dresden. Dresden talked of Berlin and Vienna and Paris and Hanover.
It was the Elector himself who called the tune at his supper party. He described as many of his amours as he remembered and then called upon his neighbour. It came to Philip von Königsmark’s turn. If he was silent he was suspect. On the other hand there was Clara von Platen ready to his tongue. She was notorious, a tireless harlot, a woman with energy and brains who only needed a larger stage to play a great part in the refashioning of Europe, and a constant subject of speculation to the Ministers of neighbouring States.
Königsmark made Clara von Platen the theme of his ungenerous muse. She had been a vindictive enemy of the Princess, from the Princess’s first coming to Hanover and he did not spare her. Her milk baths, the violence of her red and white complexion, her cruelty to her servants, her rapacity and her lusts. Upon all these traits Königsmark dilated with a pungent humour which Monsieur de la Cittardie with an air of great regret reproduced. How she had shipped and flung into prison a young housekeeper with whom Duke Ernst Augustus had trifled for five minutes in the garden of Monplaisir. How she had cheated Königsmark at cards on the first night of their meeting and fairly ravished him afterwards, and a hundred stories. His audience laughed. Oh, to be sure and the Elector more loudly than any of them. And Clara von Platen listened white with fury and her fingers extending and clutching her dress like talons. All her desire for Philip turned to gall and hatred as she listened. She would have liked to have his beautiful face at that moment beneath those talons of hers, so that she could rip the flesh from his cheek and tear his fine dark eyes out of their sockets.
“Did he rail at other women?” she asked.
Monsieur de la Cittardie shook his head.
“At none, Madame.”
“Did he praise other women?”
“Only Mademoiselle,” said Cittardie with a bow to Ermengarde.
“Oh, he had a word for me?”
“To be sure. Mademoiselle was a good kind-placed mountainous creature, who wanted nothing from anyone but his money.”
“I am beholden to Count Königsmark,” she said with tears of anger starting from her eyes.
“But did he not praise his lady love?” Clara von Platen interrupted. She had no tears to shed, she sat in an icy rage, shivering like a woman with the ague and with her painted cheeks and glaring eyes looking twice her age. “Had he no soft speeches for the Princess?”
“He never mentioned her, Madame,” and that omission angered Clara von Platen even more than his ridicule of her. Sophia Dorothea must be sheltered in the sanctuary of his heart. No boasting of her favours, no sly dig at some defect of her form which only the sharer of her bed could know! Her very name must remain unsullied by its utterance amongst those topers at the Elector’s table.
As Monsieur de la Cittardie reached the end of his loquacity, there came a knock upon the door.
“Heinrich Muller asks for a word with your Ladyship,” said the servant and Clara von Platen sprang to her feet with a cry. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open. A miracle had taken place. A prayer had been answered.
“Send him in!”
Clara von Platen waited with her eyes fixed upon the door. There was a sound of heavy footsteps. Heinrich Muller in the dress of an artisan with a leather apron hanging from his shoulders to his ankles appeared in the doorway.
“Well, Heinrich?”
“He is here.”
“Since when?”
“A few minutes, my lady. The moment after the lamps were lighted in the house, I hurried to Monplaisir.”
“Half an hour then.”
“No more,” said Heinrich.
Clara von Platen passed the tip of her tongue across her lips. She smiled secretly. She sat down again and giggled. But there was no humour, no friendliness in the giggle. On the contrary it frightened the little band of courtiers who heard it. It was all malice and triumph and meanness. A very wicked child with a long score to settle and, suddenly, the opportunity to settle it, might have gloated in just that way.
“You will go back to your post, Muller. You have men with you?”
“On at each end of the street. One in a boat at the bottom of the garden.”
“A messenger may be sent from the house. Or a messenger may come to the house. Or he himself may go out.”
“Whoever it is will be followed,” said Heinrich Muller stolidly.
“That is well,” said Clara von Platen and Heinrich Muller with a bow went out of the room.
Clara von Platen looked from one to the other of her companions, quietly smiling, quietly savouring some exquisite pleasure to which they had not the key.
“And so Count Philip blamed me for my cruelty,” she said softly.
“He was absurdly censorious,” replied Monsieur de la Cittardie.
“Was he? We shall see,” cooed Madame von Platen, and the smile became a grin and through the mask of glaring white and flaming red a skull, a head of death seemed to thrust itself forward.
“Philip has come back to Hanover,” she went on. “Very discreetly wrapped in a big cloak.”
Ermengarde von Schulenberg smote her hands together. She was a creature of tears rather than of violence. She bleated where Clara snarled. But her blue eyes flashed with a mild fire.
“He shall leave Hanover again tomorrow,” she said with trembling lips. “I’ll see to it.”
But Clara von Platen laid her hand on Ermengarde’s knee.
“My dear, I beg of you. His Highness the Electoral Prince is in Berlin. It will take time for a letter to reach him. Say nothing! You shall give me right of way.”
Monsieur de la C
ittardie made a pretence of doubting Clara von Platen’s capacity to deal with the position.
“He will slip through your fingers, and not for the first time. We thought that he was cornered in the arbour of his garden,” said Cittardie.
Clara von Platen was not offended by Cittardie’s doubts. She recapitulated in her mind all the precautions she had taken. She had borrowed Heinrich Muller from Bernstorff at Celle. He was not known in Hanover, he had no liking for Philip, he could be trusted to keep an inexorable watch on Königsmark’s house. Sophia Dorothea could not help her lover. She was to have no separate maintenance. Duke George William’s embarrassments and Clara’s insistence between them had made certain of that. Clara indeed had passed through some days of anxiety when first the Princess had rushed off to Celle with the bruises on her throat. A separate maintenance meant a separate home in a country where Clara’s claws could not reach her; and Clara had as little intention to let he go as a cat has a mangled helpless mouse. Happily the good Bernstorff was filled with a great yearning to become a Count. Let him lift a finger to loose the Princess from her shackles and there was no Countship for him as long as Clara von Platen had her mouth to the ear of Elector Ernst Augustus. But the Fates had been kind to her. Sophia Dorothea was as penniless as Philip; and she had them both here under her talons in Hanover, the girl who had driven her from the window of the Alte Schloss in shame eight years ago and the young lover who had made her his butt yesterday at Dresden.
She sat and thought over her plan and could see no flaw in it. Her guests took their leave with the exception of Monsieur de la Cittardie.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 722