George came back from an expedition to Hanover in a very bad humor. He hated everything in England; he loved everything in Hanover. It was with the uttermost reluctance that he dragged himself back from the place of his amusements and his most cherished amours. He had lately found in Hanover a new object of adoration. This was a Madame Walmoden, a fashionable young married woman, with whom George had fallen headlong into love. He wrote home to his wife, telling her of his admiration for Madame Walmoden, and describing with some minuteness the lady's various charms of person. He induced Madame Walmoden--probably no great persuasion was needed--to leave her husband and become the mistress of a king. George, it is said, paid down the not very extravagant sum of a thousand dollars to make things pleasant all round. During his stay in Hanover he and his new companion behaved quite like a high-Dutch Antony and Cleopatra. They had revels and orgies of all kinds in the midst of a crowd of companions as refined and intellectual as themselves. George had paintings made of some of these scenes, with portrait likenesses of those who took a leading part in them, and these paintings he brought home to England, and was accustomed {49} to exhibit and explain to the Queen, or to anybody else who happened to be in the way. But he did not as yet venture to bring Madame Walmoden to England; and his having to part with her threw him into a very bad temper. The curious reader will find an amusing, but at the same time very painful, account of the manner in which George vented his temper by snubbing his children and insulting his wife. The Queen bore it all with her wonted patience. George had made a promise to get back to Hanover very soon to see his beloved Madame Walmoden. Walpole restrained him for a long time, which made the King more and more angry. Once, when the Queen was urging him to be a little more considerate in his dealings with some of the bishops, the King of England, Defender of the Faith, told her he was sick of all that foolish stuff, and added, "I wish with all my heart that the devil may take all your bishops, and the devil take your minister, and the devil take the Parliament, and the devil take the whole island, provided I can get out of it and go to Hanover." Caroline herself could be sharp enough in her tone with the bishops sometimes, but the manners of the King seemed to her to go beyond the bounds of reason.