King George, however, remained undemonstrative. Wilhelmina calls him “cold-blooded,” and so “serious and melancholy” that she could never muster up courage to speak to him all the time he was at Berlin. There was a great banquet in the evening, though King Frederick William must have sorely grudged the expense. “The Queen,” says Wilhelmina, “kept the conversation going. We had already sat for two hours at table when Lord Townshend asked me to beg my mother to get up from the dinner-table as the King was not feeling well. She thereupon made some excuse, saying he must be tired and suggested to him that dinner was over. He, however, several times declared that he was not the least tired, and to prevent further argument on the subject, she laid down her napkin and got up from her chair. She had no sooner done so than the King began to stagger. My father rushed forward to help him, and several persons came to his aid, and held him up for a while, when he suddenly gave way altogether, and had he not been supported, he would have had a dreadful fall. His wig lay on one side, and his hat on the other, and they had to lay him down on the floor, where he remained a whole hour before regaining consciousness. Every one thought he had had a paralytic stroke. The remedies used had the desired effect, and by degrees he recovered. He was entreated to go to bed, but would not hear of it till he had accompanied my mother back to her apartments.” The rest of the visit was spent in _fêtes_, balls and so forth, but a good deal of business was transacted also, and the preliminaries for the double marriage were settled before King George left Berlin for Göhr, a hunting-place near Hanover. FOOTNOTES TO BOOK II, CHAPTER X: [110] The Duchess of Ormonde to Swift, 18th August, 1720. [111] _The Political State of Great Britain_ gives a list of these bubbles, in July, 1720, amounting to 104. [112] Letter of Decius in _Mist’s Journal_. [113] St. Luke xxii. 67, 68. [114] Pope to Swift, 1723. [115] This was a mistake, as Bolingbroke never went to Rome. He entered James’s service at Barr and quitted it at Versailles. [116] _The Memoirs of Wilhelmina, Margravine of Baireuth._ Carlyle drew largely on these Memoirs for the first two volumes of his _Frederick the Great_. But the book has since been admirably translated into English by H.R.H. the Princess Christian, and the quotations which follow are taken from her translation. CHAPTER XI. TO OSNABRÜCK! 1723–1727.