Madame von Platen read these notes with the elector, and so interpreted the most trifling sentences as to give them a false meaning,--it required no uncommon ingenuity to do that,--and von Platen it was who informed Sophia Dorothea of the death of her friend Philip, though not the manner of it. She was shocked and grieved, and naturally turned to Mademoiselle von Knesebeck, the only friend left to her, for consolation. {044}This lady-in-waiting was so much disposed to defend her mistress, whom she loved, that it was deemed desirable that she should be put out of the way; so she was arrested and locked up in the Castle of Schwartzfeld, in the Hartz Mountains, where she remained for several years. At last she escaped through the roof in a manner that appeared so miraculous to the governor of the jail that he declared some of the demons of the adjacent mountains had spirited her off. Sophia Dorothea's one desire was to get away from Hanover, where she knew that she was surrounded by enemies and spies ready to misconstrue every action. At last, after a great deal of persuasion on her part, she was permitted to withdraw to Lauenau, but not to take her children with her. This was a sad deprivation to the poor young mother, and it almost broke her heart to part with the little ones, whom she feared she should never more behold; but go she would, for she had too much spirit to remain in a place where she was daily subjected to the most shameful insults. After her departure a kind of a court, composed of church and state officers, was formed to patch up a reconciliation between George Louis and his wife. They did not accuse the princess of any dreadful crimes, but of incompatibility of temper and little failings of character. One would think that the husband and wife might have settled such differences without the interference of a council of wise-acres. So they might if they loved and respected each other, but, unfortunately, such had never been the case. Well, the lawyers waited on Sophia Dorothea by twos and threes, and tried all the arguments they could devise to make her own that she was wrong, and to show her how a dutiful, obedient wife ought to behave. But {045}unlike Topsy in Uncle Tom's Cabin, she would not confess faults that she had not committed. All the learned men of the court could make no impression on the young woman, who felt that she had been shamefully, wickedly wronged and neglected. Her husband was a bad man, and nobody knew it better than she did; and all the lecturing, coaxing, and manoeuvring of those who visited Sophia Dorothea at Lauenau could bring from her no reply but this: "If I am guilty I am unworthy of the prince. If I am innocent he is unworthy of me." She was right, and they could only admire the dignity and purity of character that prompted such an answer.