A cynic might have laughed, a more religious philosopher would have sighed, at the further illustration of the severity of manners at the ducal court, and the ‘serene’ anxiety for the proper conduct of the newly-married Princess. The Duke actually sent his mistress to engage Lord Malmesbury to set the bride in a right path. Mademoiselle de Hertzfeldt represented to the envoy the necessity of being very _strict_ with the Princess. The courtesan champion of morality represented the Duke’s daughter as not clever, neither was she ill-disposed, ‘but of a temper easily wrought on, and had no _tact_.’ The good lady thought that the envoy’s advice would have more effect than the paternal counsel, as, ‘although the Princess respected him, she also feared him as a severe rather than an affectionate father; that she had no respect for her mother, and was inattentive to her when she dared.’ No more terrible testimony could be rendered against a daughter than this. For if a girl love not her mother, whom shall she ever love? and if she hide not her disregard from the mother whom she cannot in her heart honour, whom will she ever truly regard? The Princess was as anxious in imploring guidance and direction from Lord Malmesbury as any of her relatives, and she was probably quite as sincere in asking for counsel. At dinner and supper, concert and opera, there was the same diet and the same song. For hours of a morning the paternal admonitions were poured into the bride’s ear, and for hours of an evening Lord Malmesbury had to listen to what the Princess had been told. The advice was good of its sort, but its constant repetition shows that the Duke had great fears touching his daughter’s character. The Duke wished to make her feel ‘that the high situation in which she was going to be placed was not simply one of amusement and enjoyment; that it had its duties, and those perhaps hard and difficult to fulfil.’ Lord Malmesbury was especially invoked not to desert the Princess in England. The Duke was quite right in foreseeing that future peril, and _what_ future peril for his daughter, lay in that direction. ‘He dreaded the Prince’s habits.’ Well he might. They were not dissimilar from his own. On the very evening that the Duke told the envoy that he dreaded the Prince’s habits, Lady Eden, who had just arrived at Brunswick from London, told Lord Malmesbury that ‘Lady ----,’ meaning, doubtless, Lady Jersey, ‘was very well with the Queen; that she went frequently to Windsor, and appeared as a sort of favourite.’ ‘This, if true,’ says Lord Malmesbury, ‘is most strange, and bodes no good.’ The intelligence seems to have strongly impressed the envoy; and when, in the evening, he sat next the Princess Caroline at supper, he counselled her ‘to avoid familiarity, to have no _confidants_, to avoid giving any opinion, to approve but not to admire excessively, to be perfectly silent on politics and party, to be very attentive and respectful to