“Ernest Augustus always had a queer head, and how such an idea could have entered it passes all my understanding. However, one hundred thousand thalers a year is a goodly sum to pocket, without speaking of a pretty wife, who will find a match in my son George Louis, the most pigheaded, stubborn boy who ever lived, and who has round his brains such a thick crust that I defy any man or woman ever to discover what is in them. He does not care much for the match itself, but one hundred thousand thalers a year have tempted him as they would have tempted anybody else.” The marriage contract was signed at Celle by Ernest Augustus and George Louis on the one part and George William and Sophie Dorothea on the other; thus the Princess was induced to sign away not only her liberty, but her fortune, and she became soul and body the property of George Louis. The Duchess Sophia came back from Hanover to be present at the wedding, which was hurried forward with all speed. Great preparations were made for it, and costly presents and congratulations poured in from all sides. The wedding was celebrated in the private chapel of the castle of Celle, according to the Lutheran rites, on November 21, 1682, with every circumstance of pomp and ceremony. The town was gaily decorated, the castle was thronged with distinguished guests; there had never been such a wedding at Celle before. The beautiful little chapel, brilliantly illuminated and bedecked with flowers, presented a scene of unusual splendour. There were the bride’s procession and the bridegroom’s procession, and the procession of the parents, and the court chroniclers exhausted themselves in describing the beauty of the bride, the list of her jewels, the richness of her attire. The bridegroom was scarcely less bravely arrayed. Outwardly all was fair; but within, beneath this brave show, what horror, what anguish, what base and ignoble passions! There was the Duchess Sophia, exulting over the downfall of her enemies, yet with a spice of bitterness in her cup; her husband, the wily and covetous Ernest Augustus; the weak-minded George William; the sad and anxious mother, who could scarcely restrain her tears; the bridegroom muttering the unwilling words, while all the time his heart was with his banished mistress; the child bride, she was little more than a child, pale and unresponsive, sacrificed like another Iphigenia. The omens were unpropitious: there was no sunshine for the bride; the morning dawned dark and gloomy, and during the ceremony a furious storm broke over Celle, and the wind shrieked and raged, shaking the castle walls. But dark and gloomy though the day was, it was not so dark and gloomy as the bride’s heart; and fierce though the tempest, it was not half so fierce as the passions which raged in the breasts of the little group around the altar. There were priests and prayers and benedictions, all the pomp of heraldry and the pageantry of courts; yet when all was stripped away