attentions from one who was known everywhere as a great princess flattered Eléonore’s pride, and the prospect of joining her lover gratified her love. She consented and came. ----- Footnote 10: He married later, 1668, but his wife brought him no children. ----- Eléonore was received with every mark of respect. Sophia, accompanied by George William, met her at the foot of the grand staircase of the castle. She was led up to the Duchess’s own chamber, where coffee and salt biscuits, an unusual honour, were offered her, and she was then conducted to her apartments. No one could be more affable than the Duchess; everything seemed straightforward, and it is no wonder that Eléonore, a stranger in a strange land, was outwitted. She soon found that she could not draw back without compromising her reputation, so she yielded to advice, not altogether reluctantly, and accepted at last the left-handed marriage offered her. A contract was drawn up, worded almost as if it were a regular marriage; but carefully guarding the rights of Sophia, her husband, and her children; and the signatures of Ernest Augustus and Sophia were written under those of George William of Celle and Eléonore d’Olbreuse. After the ceremony, which took place in September, 1665, Eléonore was granted the title of Madame von Harburg, so called from an estate of the Duke’s, and her nominal place of lady-in-waiting was filled by her sister Angelica, whom she later married to the Comte de Reuss. In her memoirs Sophia declares that at first she was agreeably surprised to find Eléonore a very amiable person, of modest and even retiring manners, and she no doubt thought she would be easily kept in her place—not a high one. She soon found herself mistaken. For some months after the morganatic marriage—the _anti-contrat de mariage_ Sophia contemptuously called it—Eléonore continued to live in the household of the Duchess, and was not treated with any great honour, and certainly not admitted to an equality of rank. For instance, at meal-times she did not take her place at the ducal table, and had to sit on a low chair, without anything to eat, at a respectful distance from Sophia and George William and Ernest Augustus, who ate their food while Madame von Harburg looked on. But she was allowed to remain seated when any princes were present, and this was considered a great concession. Her pride was much hurt at this etiquette, nor did the heavy living and coarse manners of the German court appeal to her finer tastes. In her interesting letters to her uncle she complains that “her heart was sadly turned” by the enormous dishes brought before the princely eaters, their _menu_ consisting chiefly of greasy sausages thrown in lumps on red cabbage, and a farinaceous mass of ginger and onions. This was washed down by cloudy, heavy ale, of which they drank freely. “Now,” the Duchess Sophia would exclaim after she had eaten her fill, mopping her face with a