The Duchess Sophia, true to her policy, steadily ignored all these extravagances on the part of Madame Platen, and continued to seek distraction in the consolations of philosophy and the society of Leibniz and other learned men, whom, to her honour be it said, she invited to the court of Hanover. Not so Sophie Dorothea, who was first astounded and then indignant, at the impudent display of the court mistress. Perhaps vanity had something to do with her indignation, for she objected to so many of the young nobles absenting themselves from her quiet little levées to pay their respects to Madame Platen. In youth and beauty the Princess far outshone the more mature Platen, and at the court functions, splendidly dressed and brilliant with jewels, she was easily first and Madame Platen nowhere. Madame Platen had so long been the leading lady at the court of Hanover, in fact if not in name, that she could ill brook a rival near her throne, and she had imagined, in her ignorance, that a young girl like Sophie Dorothea would be amenable to her wishes. But the Princess, though young, and careless enough about etiquette in the ordinary way, was not disposed to abate any jot or tittle of the privileges of her rank and position in favour of Madame Platen, and quickly intimated to the woman that she must keep her place. Perhaps Sophie Dorothea would have done better if she had imitated the policy of her august mother-in-law, and ignored the powerful mistress, but she was young and not altogether wise, and her heart was hot with indignant anger at the woman’s arrogance and want of respect to herself. She expressed herself with considerable freedom on the subject, and her remarks, the reverse of complimentary, coming to Madame Platen’s ears, incensed her the more against the airs and graces of “the interloper,” as she called the Princess. Madame Platen was, in fact, wounded with her own weapon; she had helped to bring Sophie Dorothea to Hanover, only to find her arrayed against her.