Use was kept captive, and very shabbily treated, until the Countess von Platen had resolved as to the further course which should be ultimately adopted towards her. She could bring no charge against her, save a pretended accusation of lightness of conduct and immorality scandalous to Hanoverian decorum. Under this charge she had her old handmaid drummed out of the town; and if the elder Sophia heard the tap of the drums which accompanied the alleged culprit to the gates, we can only suppose that she would have expelled the countess to the same music. But, in the first place, the wives of princes were by no means so powerful as their favourites; and secondly, the friend of the philosophical Leibnitz was too much occupied with the sage to trouble herself with the affairs which gave concern to the Countess von Platen. Use found herself outside the city walls, friendless, penniless, with a damaged character, and nothing to cover it but the light costume which she had worn in the process of her march of expulsion to the roll of ‘dry drums.’ When she had found a refuge, her first course was to apply to Ernest Augustus for redress. The prince, however, was at once oblivious, ungrateful, and powerless; and, confining himself to sending to the poor petitioner a paltry eleemosynary half-dozen of gold pieces, he forbade her return to Hanover, counselled her to settle elsewhere, and congratulated her that she had not received even rougher treatment. Use next made full statement of her case to the Duchess of Zell; and that lady, deeming the case one of peculiar hardship, and the penalty inflicted on a giddy girl too unmeasured for the pardonable offence of amusing an old prince who encouraged her to the task, after much consideration, due weighing of the statement, and befitting inquiry, took the offender into her own service, and gave to the exiled Hanoverian a refuge, asylum, and employment in Zell.