The fame of the Marquis de Lassaye was at its zenith when he threw himself across the path of Sophie Dorothea in Rome, and, if we may believe his word, for we have no other evidence, he promptly seized the opportunity to make love to her. Some fifty years later, before he ended his days in his castle of Lassaye, he made a collection of everything he had written, or was supposed to have written,[25] and had it privately printed by his own press in his castle. In this compilation he inserted thirteen love-letters, which he asserts that he wrote to Sophie Dorothea when she was in Italy; but none of them are dated, and all are the vague rubbish which in those days formed the stock-in-trade of gallantry. They are couched in extravagant expressions of devotion, but are singularly unconvincing. If we may believe his letters, there was a flirtation between the Princess and the Marquis, Eléonore Knesebeck acting as a go-between; the affair was discovered, broken off, and the Princess was admonished, and Lassaye forced to quit Rome. The letters are not worth repeating in full, but the last one he alleges that he wrote to the Princess will serve as a specimen of the rest:— “I do not desire that you should run the risk of ruining yourself by keeping up relations with me: it is better for me to die and for you to live less unhappily. Stop, then, writing to a man who always brings misfortunes in his train, and whose fates are unpropitious. I have almost lost the habit of sleeping, and am scarcely able to support myself. Why have I been born with such a sensitive heart? Why was I destined to be always unhappy? Suffering seems to be my only lot in the world. Life is a burden to me, and in dying I should be able to secure your peace and happiness. Farewell, dear Princess; I can no longer bear the grief that overwhelms me.” ----- Footnote 25: This collection is called _Mémoires de Monsieur de Lassaye_. It bears also the better title of _Recueils de différentes choses_, for the parts of which it is composed are very varied and disconnected—love affairs, philosophy, ethics, satire, reflections on various matters, and letters, all jumbled up together. Lassaye had only a few copies of this collection printed for himself and a select circle of friends, so copies are extremely rare and cannot be bought. Herr Edward Bodemann managed to stumble across one in a second-hand bookshop in Paris, and to him I am indebted for the perusal of the correspondence in the original French. -----