The spring of my life was bright and lovely. I was educated with the most illustrious young women of the age, and numbered the children of sovereigns among my play-mates. The daughters of the Count of Hapsburg lived with me like sisters; and even when Rudolf was elected Emperor, and their father’s elevation authorized them to expect to share the thrones of the first Sovereigns of Europe, still did our friendship continue in full force. What have innocence and inexperienced youth to do with dignity and grandeur? Things of this nature only furnished us with a subject for mirth; we past in review the Princes, both young and old, who solicited the good graces of the Emperor’s daughters; we discussed freely their merits and defects, portioned them out among our society, and amused ourselves with jesting at the unfortunate maiden, to whom the worst lot fell. The number of these illustrious suitors was seven; and as the Princesses with myself made exactly the same number, I necessarily came in for my share in this allotment. Unfortunately, what at first was mere jesting at length became serious. The Duke of Saxony, who at his first arrival seemed to limit all his wishes to the possession of the Princess Matilda, (Rudolf’s eldest daughter,) began to imagine, that her companion Urania was the superior beauty of the two. As it was generally believed (both on account of the uniformity which prevailed in our society, and of our never being separated) that I was the sister of my friends, the Duke thought it a matter of very little consequence, to which of the Emperor’s daughters he paid his addresses; and he showed his election in my favour so plainly and so publicly, that Rudolf ordered me to quit his court. My removal was so sudden, that no step could be taken by the Duke in this important business: my father had fallen in the late popular commotions at Basle; I had never known my mother; I was consigned to the guardianship of an uncle, who had purchased considerable possessions in the neighbourhood of the Rhætian Alps, where he resided far from the tumult of the court in freedom and tranquillity.