The eldest, Duke Christian, settled down to a fairly quiet life at Celle; “his only fault,” we hear, “was drinking,” a very venial offence in those days. But the second brother, Duke George William, found life at Hanover unbearably tedious. He had little liking for the stiff and monotonous routine of his German court; the simple lives of his subjects bored him, and their rude manners and coarse habit of living disgusted him. Though all his life strongly anti-French in his politics, he belonged to the newer school of German princes and affected the society and fashions of the French, so much so that on one occasion a French envoy said to him at his own table: “But, Monseigneur, this is charming; there is no foreigner here but you”. Though a young man, George William had already travelled in Italy, and acquired a certain polish of manners and superficial refinement not usually to be found among German princes of his time. The first use he made of his freedom was to escape from the tedium of his uninteresting little principality, and, in company with his youngest brother, Ernest Augustus, who was then his boon companion, and largely dependent upon his bounty, he made another tour in Italy, visiting Milan and Venice. At Venice, then at its zenith, the brothers plunged into the delights and dissipations which the gay city offered. George William formed an intimacy with a Venetian woman, one Signora Buccolini, by whom he had a son. For many years he was devoted to her, and maintained her in considerable affluence; for, with all his faults, he was of a generous disposition. But the lady was of so passionate, jealous, and exacting a temperament that at last she tired the patience of her protector. After many quarrels he made an arrangement by which he settled a sum of money upon the mother, and took the charge of the boy’s education upon himself. This was the final separation. He took back the young Lucas Buccolini with him to Hanover, clipped his Italian name into Bucco, or Buccow, and found him a place in his household.[6] ----- Footnote 6: On attaining to man’s estate, this youth filled the office of Master of the Horse at the court of Celle; later he became a colonel of the dragoons. He seems to have been of a jealous disposition, and was always grumbling because his putative father did not do more for him. -----