“We start to-morrow after dinner for Celle. I am very glad, for it brings us nearer to one another, and I shall hope to have news of you oftener. I have not been able to write from here as much as I should have liked. I am broken with many anxieties, and tremble lest your embarrassments may take you to Flanders. Your Swedish business worries me also, and to crown my misery I cannot see you, and shall have to spend a whole month without you—you, who are the only joy of my life. _Grand Dieu!_ how weary I am of the existence I lead! how sad and hopeless it all is! The end of my misery seems still very far off. But I am wrong to complain, since you love me: that thought should console me for everything, for as long as you do not change I shall be happy.... I hear my mother. Adieu.” CHAPTER XX. LOVE’S BITTERNESS. Ah! what a little time to love is lent; Yet half that time is in unkindness spent! DRYDEN. The Princess spent the month of July at Celle and Wienhausen with her parents. She did not once meet her lover, who remained at Hanover daily expecting orders to start on the campaign against the Danes. For, contrary to expectation, and despite the mediation of an Imperial envoy, who journeyed to Hanover on purpose to arrange matters, the Duke of Celle and the Elector of Hanover came to an open rupture with Denmark and Sweden over the fortifications of Ratzeburg, and Denmark sent troops to demolish them. This, of course, was tantamount to a declaration of war. It was an anxious time for the little court of Celle, for the Danes were far superior in numbers, and if successful at Ratzeburg they might follow up their advantage by entering the duchy and even seizing Celle itself.