Numerous small States within the kingdom of Prussia, with their feudal powers and rights, had to be broken up by the Great Elector as a first step towards a Prussian nationality. It was really by continuing the Great Elector's work in this respect that Stein had aroused that national movement which eventually threw off the French yoke. But Frederick William III had set himself to reorganise the provincial States on the basis of a strict observance of their historical rights. This reorganisation did not satisfy the mediævals because it failed to provide any real check upon the bureaucratic character of the remaining part of the King's administration. At the time of the Princess Royal's marriage there still survived an extraordinary number of little States, each with its ruling family, and for the most part as poor as they were proud. CHAPTER IV MARRIAGE It is the universal testimony that at the time of her wedding the Princess Royal was at the height of her youthful beauty and charm. This is not the mere flattery of courtiers, to whom all Royal ladies are beautiful as a matter of course; it is the opinion expressed by a multitude of observers in contemporary private letters, diaries, and reminiscences. And of all the descriptions of her at this time in existence the most lifelike we owe to a German lady of rank, one of the Princess's future ladies-in-waiting, Countess Walpurga de Hohenthal, who afterwards married Sir Augustus Berkeley Paget, British Ambassador in Rome and Vienna. This lady gives in her book of reminiscences, _Scenes and Memories_, this vivid vignette of her Royal mistress as she looked just before her marriage: "The Princess appeared extraordinarily young. All the childish roundness still clung to her and made her look shorter than she really was. She was dressed in a fashion long disused on the Continent, in a plum-coloured silk dress fastened at the back. Her hair was drawn off her forehead. Her eyes were what struck me most; the iris was green like the sea on a sunny day, and the white had a peculiar shimmer which gave them the fascination that, together with a smile showing her small and beautiful teeth, bewitched those who approached her. The nose was unusually small and turned up slightly, and the complexion was ruddy, perhaps too much so for one thing, but it gave the idea of perfect health and strength. The fault of the face lay in the squareness of the lower features, and there was even a look of determination about the chin, but the very gentle and almost timid manner prevented one realising this at first. The voice was very delightful, never going up to high tones, but lending a peculiar charm to the slight foreign accent with which the Princess spoke both English and German."