The King's own account of the affair is sufficiently explicit. His words are: "Not long ago [about two years before this of the penknife] we mentioned the Prince of Prussia's marriage with Elizabeth of Brunswick [his Cousin twice over, her Mother, Princess Charlotte of Prussia, being his Father's Sister and mine, and her Father HIS Mother's Brother,--if you like to count it]. This engagement, from which everybody had expected happy consequences, did not correspond to the wishes of the Royal House." Only one Princess could be realized (subsequently Wife to the late Duke of York),--she came this same year of the penknife,--and bad outlooks for more. "The Husband, young and dissolute (SANS MOEURS), given up to a crapulous life, from which his relatives could not correct him, was continually committing infidelities to his Wife. The Princess, who was in the flower of her beauty, felt outraged by such neglect of her charms; her vivacity, and the good opinion she had of herself, brought her upon the thought of avenging her wrongs by retaliation. Speedily she gave in to excesses, scarcely inferior to those of her Husband. Family quarrels broke out, and were soon publicly known. The antipathy that ensued took away all hope of succession [had it been desirable in these sad circumstances!]. Prince Henri [JUNIOR, this hopeful Prince of Prussia's Brother], who was gifted with all the qualities to be wished in a young man [witness my tears for him], had been carried off by small-pox. ["26th May, 1767," age 19 gone; ELOGE of him by Friedrich ("MS. still stained with tears"), in _OEuvres de Frederic_, vii. 37 et seq.] The King's Brothers, Princes Henri and Ferdinand, avowed frankly that they would never consent to have, by some accidental bastard, their rights of succession to the crown carried off. In the end, there was nothing for it but proceeding to a divorce." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ vi. 23.] Divorce was done in a beautiful private manner; case tried with strictly shut doors; all the five judges under oath to carry into the grave whatever they came to know of it: [Preuss, iv. 180-186.] divorce completed 18th April, 1769; and, within three months, a new marriage was accomplished, Princess Frederika Luisa of Hessen-Darmstadt the happy woman. By means of whom there was duly realized a Friedrich Wilhelm, who became "King Friedrich Wilhelm III." (a much-enduring, excellent, though inarticulate man), as well as various other Princes and Princesses, in spite of interruptions from the Lichtenau Sisterhood. High-souled Elizabeth was relegated to Stettin; her amount of Pension is not mentioned; her Family, after the unhappy proofs communicated to them, had given their consent and sanction;--and she stayed there, idle, or her own mistress of work, for the next seventy-one years.--Enough of HER Lyon Dress, surely, and of the Excise system altogether!-- THE NEUE PALAIS, IN SANS-SOUCI NEIGHBORHOOD, IS FOUNDED AND FINISHED (1763-1770).