To Lützenburg came the eloquent Huguenot preacher, Beausobre; Vota, the celebrated Jesuit and Roman Catholic controversialist; Toland, the English freethinker; Papendorf, the historian; Handel, the great musician, when he was a boy; and last and among the greatest, the famous Leibniz. Hither came often, too, on many a long visit, the Electress Sophia of Hanover, “the merry _débonnaire_ princess of Germany,” who, like her daughter, delighted in theological polemics, and philosophic speculations. Sophie Charlotte’s principles were exceedingly liberal, so much so that she became known as “the Republican Queen,” and her early religious training, or rather the lack of it, was very noticeable in the trend of thought she gave to her gatherings. She would take nothing for granted, she submitted everything to the tribunal of reason; her eager and active spirit was always seeking to know the truth, even “the why of the why,” as Leibniz grumbled once. Her mother, the Electress Sophia, would seem to have been a rationalist, with a strong dash of Calvinism. Sophie Charlotte went a step farther; she was nothing of a Calvinist, but rather leant to the theories of Descartes. “My mother is a clever woman, but a bad Christian,” said her son once, and that was true if he meant a dogmatic Christian, though Leibniz had a theory for reconciling Christianity and reason, which especially commended itself to her. She took a keen interest in theological polemics, and whenever any clever Jesuit came her way, she delighted in nothing so much as to get him to expound his views, and then put up one of her chaplains to answer him. In this way she set the Jesuit Vota disputing with the Protestant Brensenius, and the orthodox Huguenot Beausobre with the freethinking sceptic Toland. Nor were these arguments confined to theological subjects; scientific, philosophic and social questions--everything, in short, came within the debatable ground, and on one occasion we hear of a long and animated argument on the question whether marriage was, or was not, ordained for the procreation of children! The Queen presided over all these intellectual tournaments, throwing in a suggestion here or raising a doubt there; she was always able to draw the best out of every one, and thanks to her tact and amiability, the disputes on thorny questions were invariably conducted without unpleasantness. [Illustration: LÜTZENBURG (CHARLOTTENBURG).]