“I sighed a long time for your letters. Two came yesterday. I opened them with joy, but gladness was soon changed to direst grief. My misery is so great that it will surely drive me to some desperate deed. I was so troubled and distraught that I did not notice yesterday that the King was looking for me in the crowd, and bowed to me. Monsieur Bülow warned me, otherwise I should not have seen him. The order that our troops are to go to the relief of Charleroy could not have come more _à propos_, for I shall seek death there, and so find relief from my troubles. Think only of yourself, and take every care that their suspicions may not get you into trouble. I implore you do this. I will bear all the disgrace with joy if only I see you out of danger. I will gladly be of all men the most miserable, I will give up the only woman I have ever loved in my life, I will leave the Hanoverian service, and so be deprived at one blow of my divinity, my calling, and my consolation. The North takes away from me the means of livelihood,[180] and even in play bad luck persecutes me. See to what plight I have come! I have borne ruin and disgrace with impunity, happy in the joy of being able to love you with a lasting love, but now I must live without you! I cannot do so. If I have to leave you I must leave life too. Charleroy will help me; there I will seek death to end my sorrow.... If death does not decide my fate, I will never abandon you—not even though I were poisoned, massacred, beaten black and blue, or burned alive. But I talk like a man who has lost his reason. I do not see how in suffering all these insults I am gaining you. I am only drawing on you no end of trouble. I must give you up; but, if I must die, I will die avenging myself on those who are forcing me to abandon you.