I thank you for the medals you have sent me; but I should like to receive those that are made against France. I already have the most insulting,--those that were struck in the reign of King William. The king and the ministers have them, therefore you need not hesitate to send them to me on the first occasion.[5] I have received your letters from Heidelberg and Frankfort, and I answered them; but my letters to you, dear Louise, are all in the packet to my aunt which has been detained so long that we are nearly crazy about it. But that is what the all-powerful dame and the ministers succeed in--far better than they do in governing the kingdom. VERSAILLES, 1709. Never in my life did I know so gloomy a period. The people are dying of cold like flies. The mills are stopped, and that has forced many to die of hunger. Yesterday they told me a sorrowful story about a woman who stole a loaf of bread from a baker's shop in Paris. The baker wanted to arrest her; she said, weeping, "If you knew my misery you would not take the loaf away from me; I have three little children all naked; they ask me for bread; I cannot bear it, and that is why I have stolen the loaf." The commissary before whom they took the woman told her to take him where she lived; he went there, and found the three little children sitting in a corner under a heap of rags, trembling with cold as if they had the ague. "Where is your father?" he asked the eldest. The child answered, "Behind the door." The commissary looked to see why the father was hiding behind the door, and recoiled with horror--the man had hung himself in despair. Such things are happening daily. I am very much deserted here, for every one, young and old, runs after favour. The Maintenon cannot endure me, and the Duchesse de Bourgogne likes only what that lady likes. I have done my best to conciliate that all-powerful person, but I cannot succeed in doing so. So I am excluded from everything, and I never see the king except at supper. I can only act according to the will of others. I was less bound when Monsieur was living. I dare not sleep away from Versailles without the king's permission. It is not wrong, therefore, that I should wish to be with you in our dear Palatinate; but God does not will that here below we should be fully satisfied. You and Amélie are free, but your health is bad; I am lonely, but my health, thank God, is perfect. You are mistaken if you think that no lamentations are heard here; night and day we hear of nothing else; the famine is so great that children have eaten each other. The king is so determined to continue the war that yesterday he gave up his gold service and now uses porcelain; he has sent every gold thing he has to the mint to be turned into coin.