The last years of the Markgräfin’s chequered life were by far the happiest. Their correspondence during those years shows the revival of a complete understanding between Frederick the Great and her, and bears every witness of mutual admiration. He appreciated her undoubted talents; she sympathized with his endeavours and gloried in his success. Their affection was warmer and more real than it had been even in their childhood. She speaks of it with delight as a “retour de sentiments des personnes qu’on aime.” Besides this natural source of a great joy there was also her intellectual friendship with Voltaire. She made his acquaintance in 1740 at Reinsberg, a country place where the great Frederick had gathered together a whole assembly of men of letters and science, whom in spare moments he refreshed with his flute. Three years later Voltaire accompanied the King to Bayreuth, where he outstayed his royal patron for a fortnight, during which he helped the Markgräfin in a whole series of entertainments and theatricals. Their correspondence, in which she delighted, lasted till her death, upon which he wrote one of the trashiest sonnets that ever appeared signed by a great name. The editor of her journal calls it a “monument immortel”! The Markgräfin Wilhelmine was not only a woman of remarkable talent, but she was a Princess typical of the times in which she lived and of the position which she occupied. If she did not directly play a leading part in the historical events of those days, she was intimately mixed up with those who did. She left her mark upon her husband’s principality, and it will always be difficult to think of Bayreuth without remembering her as a most notable personality in its princely family. Times have changed; but if the tinsel of a pinchbeck Court has disappeared, Bayreuth to-day is more brilliant and more famous than it was in the days when the smiles or frowns of the Markgrafen and their consorts made the Paradise or the Gehenna of their courtiers. Then the old Franconian capital could hardly have been known outside of Germany or Austria, and even there it only ranked as one of many such towns. Now the mighty genius of one man has transformed it into the Mecca of a great cult, celebrated wherever the magic power of poetry, music, and art holds sway, drawing the willing pilgrims to its shrine.