Though under the new _régime_ the court of Hanover differed in religious ceremonial from that of Versailles, in other respects it was a bad imitation, and the grafting of spurious French architecture on the little mediæval German town produced many incongruous effects, as incongruous as the aping of French manners and French morals. For the court of Hanover imitated not only the pleasures of Versailles, but also its vices. Unlike his brother George William, matrimony had effected no change in the laxities of Ernest Augustus, and the explanation is probably to be found in the fact that his was a marriage of policy, while the other’s was a marriage of love. Ernest Augustus was a man of six times the ability of George William. He was selfish and scheming, but there was a certain splendid good nature about him, and though his court was dissolute, it was always brilliant. The money for his pleasures, for he was as great a spendthrift as his brother was the reverse of one, he raised either by squeezing George William or by equipping regiments of his subjects and selling them to foreign service, as, for instance, to fight the Emperor’s enemies on the Danube. This was in the approved style of the Grand Monarque, who always had a war on hand by way of a kingly pastime. Louis, like Solomon of old, had also his beautiful favourites in great array, who reaped rich rewards of wealth and influence. This period of European history may be said to mark the apotheosis of military and political adventurers and royal mistresses. There was no court without its adventurers, and a king was hardly a king without a bevy of mistresses. Many of them were women of noble birth, who embarked on the career with the encouragement of their parents and guardians, and even of their husbands. Louise de Querouaille, afterwards Duchess of Portsmouth, went over from France to England to win the favour of Charles II. In the same way Clara Elizabeth and Catherine Marie Meisenbug journeyed to Osnabrück in the hope of capturing the good-will of Ernest Augustus and his son.