"When this writing was put into our hands, we were in such great affliction we did not know how to decide. At last we sent a noble bedchamber woman to our lord and husband, commanding her to signify to his Princely Highness that we were disposed to consent willingly to all his desires, except as concerning the divorce. For this, being an affair of conscience, must be well considered. I begged him therefore for a little time for deliberation. Undoubtedly if his Princely Highness should please to accomplish a divorce by his own power, we were much too weak to hinder him. But we thought we had never given his Princely Highness any sufficient reason for repudiating us. "The bedchamber woman delivered this in the best way she could. But our lord and husband thus answered: 'Fair lady, tell your mistress we are now minded to give her henceforth more freedom, and to withdraw the four Swiss entirely from her apartment. It shall also be permitted to her to walk below in the garden if agreeable to her; and she may rest assured that I will find means to content her, but she must not think of writing to her lord brother concerning our purposes. She must also agree to the divorce, for I am minded to marry another.' "The noble maiden had scarcely given us this answer, when the four Swiss were with all speed withdrawn from our apartment, and we went the same evening to breathe the fresh air in the garden. The day following our lord and husband journeyed to the castle at Ladenburg. In the evening, about five o'clock, the noble Count von Eberstein, our loving lord and cousin, came to us. He told us that the von Degenfeld had been sojourning already three months at the Castle of Ladenburg, and that our lord and husband had betaken himself thither every week during our absence; nay he had caused a special road to be made that he might the sooner reach it. Then we first discovered what had been the aim of our lord and husband, and we lamented our misfortune with many tears. "A week after, our lord and husband sent us a note, the contents of which ran literally thus:-- "'Most Serene Highness,