Her father-in-law, the Markgraf, was the object of her special hatred and of a contempt which she did not care to conceal. When the poor drunken fool was dying she was away at Potsdam with her father, and she received the intelligence with undisguised pleasure. “Les nouvelles que je reçus de Bareith furent bien satisfaisantes. Mlle. de Sonsfeld me mandait que la santé du Margrave dépérissait à vue.” He did not die until two years later, in May, 1735—a long period of waiting for a Princess who was in a hurry to be promoted to her full dignities! Frederick the Great entertained a very adequate respect for the glories of a Markgraf’s Court, nor had he the consideration for his sister’s feelings which might have curbed his satire. When, shortly before the death of their father, the King of Prussia, he paid his sister a visit at Bayreuth, he seems rather to have taken pains to mortify her: “Il se fit présenter toute la Cour, et se contenta de regarder tous ceux qui la composaient d’un air moqueur, après quoi nous nous mimes à table. Il ne fit dans toute la conversation que turlupiner tout ce qu’il voyait en me répétant plus de cent fois le mot de petit prince et de petite Cour. J’étais outrée.” Poor little Court! But there was to be worse within the sacred precincts themselves than the cruellest mockery from outside. When the Princess became Markgräfin her favourite maid-of-honour was a certain Fräulein von Marwitz, of whom in 1735 she wrote: “Pour la Marwitz je l’aimais à la passion; nous n’avions rien caché l’une pour l’autre. Je n’ai jamais vu un rapport de caractère pareil au nôtre; elle ne pouvait vivre sans moi, ni moi sans elle; elle ne faisait pas un pas sans me consulter et elle était approuvée de tout le monde.” A beautiful friendship! But alas for the inconstancy of female alliances! It was not very long before the lovely Marwitz—for she was lovely—fulfilled her courtly mission by setting her cap at the Markgraf, and stealing his heart from the mistress who loved her, if indeed she ever loved anybody but herself. As I said before, it was a very real Court. It was a centre of political intrigues; for the rivalries of Austria and Prussia kept the small capitals of Germany in a continual fever; while, apart from greater questions of policy, jealousies, ambitions, and heart-burnings worthy of Versailles and the Œil de Bœuf were directed upon petty promotions and evanescent favouritisms. As for the chief luminaries, they shed a light over their little firmament relatively not inferior to that of the Roi Soleil himself.