The Princess was a ready writer, the chief blemish of her letters being a tendency to repetition and an extraordinary diffuseness; she would take pages to say what might have been compressed into a few sentences. But this is a fault common to love-letters—which are not written for the edification of the world, but only for the one to whom they are addressed; and we must not judge them by the ordinary canons of literary criticism. In the Princess’s case, too, there was often a necessity for her to wrap her meaning in a cloud of words, lest it should be too readily discovered, if her epistles fell into other hands. Though her letters are in two (or three) handwritings, they are all identical in style and expression—another proof that those the Princess did not write with her own hand, disguised or undisguised, she dictated word for word to Knesebeck. An elaborate cypher, or rather series of cyphers, is used throughout the correspondence for the names of persons and places. To this cypher the lovers alone held the key. All the personages mentioned in the letters are disguised under different names; as, for instance:— _L’Aventurière_ Countess Aurora Königsmarck. _Le Réformeur_ (_Le Réformateur_) Prince George Louis. _Don Diégo_ The Elector Ernest Augustus. _La Romaine_ The Electress Sophia. _Le Grondeur_ The Duke of Celle. _La Pedagogue_ The Duchess of Celle. _La Perspective_ The Countess Platen. _La Boule_ The Electress of Brandenburg. _Le bon Homme_ Marshal Podevils. _L’Innocent_ Prince Ernest Augustus. _Colin_ Prince Maximilian. _La Marionette_ Princess of Hesse. _Le Satyre_ } Hanoverian Ministers. _Le Barbouilleur_ } _La Douairière_ The Princess of East Friesland. _La Gazelle_ Countess von Lewenhaupt. _La Grosse Dondon_ Madame von Ilten. _La Confidente_ } _La Sentinelle_ } Fräulein von Knesebeck. _La Gouvernante_ } _Léonisse_ } _La Cœur Gauche_ } Princess Sophie Dorothea. _La Petite Louche_ } _Le Chevalier_ } _Tercis_ } Königsmarck. Some of these nicknames are not very complimentary to the persons for whom they are intended, but they are comparatively easy to decipher. The task is much more difficult when we come to the other cypher, in figures. Speaking roughly, numbers of one hundred and upwards signify names of men; two hundred and upwards, names of women; three hundred and upwards, names of places. As for example:—