With this amiable Prince I lived in uninterrupted happiness, but his uncle, the sage, the politician, and the hero, began to interfere with our little love-concerns, and loudly inveighed against his nephew’s fathering several of my children, and the people publicly calling me his mistress. It did not become, he thought, the destined ruler of a great and powerful nation to be governed and duped by women and a set of idle parasites. Such creatures, he said, were generally connected with a gang of adventurers, for whom no honest man could have the least esteem, because they had no other aim than to creep into favour, under the protection of a prostitute, and, as soon as they had obtained it, would interfere with the most serious and momentous concerns of the state, betray whole nations, exhaust the very sources of the common wealth, and commit acts of violence and injustice. Such and the like nonsense would frequently flow from the old man’s lips, and the Prince, who, in fact, was somewhat overawed by his aged uncle, advised me to retire to my native town till the storm was over, and the horizon cleared up again. In consequence of his advice, I repaired to Dessau, accompanied by my mother, where I was soon afterwards delivered of a son. The Prince often came to visit me in my retirement, and our meetings were crowned with unspeakable bliss. To make the old man quite easy, and the better to enable ourselves to carry on our mutual intercourse, the Prince proposed a match between me and his favorite valet, Rietz. His uncle, he thought, would the sooner forget me, and his foes, as well as mine, would, by this marriage, be brought to silence. I entered into the scheme, became Mrs. Rietz, and returned unconcerned to Berlin. To the old grumbler I was represented as an ignorant country wench, without any turn for intrigue, and incapable of governing the Prince, and still less of involving him, even in the most distant manner, in any foreign concern. This completely quieted the old man, and I passed my time in the greatest peace and tranquillity. The long wished-for moment arrived at last; the old fellow died, and my dear admirer ascended the throne. An extensive field of action now opened before my eyes; “This is the time, said I to myself, to form my system; to govern, to rule, to enrich, my friends, and to humble the pride of my inveterate foes.”