Professor Thierry had drawn up an excellent plan of campaign, and the further I explored the library, the more I appreciated his wisdom. The history of the German dynasties contemporary with Louis XIV. sheds a wonderful light on his reign, throwing its natural attraction into greater relief. The single preoccupation of German princelings towards the close of the seventeenth century was to imitate the King of France, the usual method being to secure the services of artists, or pupils of artists, who had worked for him. But while every French seigneur made a point of having a particular artist to work exclusively for him, it is amusing to see how the Germans usually clubbed together to share the expense of commissioning some particular painter, sculptor, or gardener. It reminds one of the way in which poor Parisian families club together to buy a sack of vegetables or a whole lamb at the _Halles_. I discovered among the archives most of the estimates of the French painters and sculptors who worked not merely for the Dukes of Lautenburg and Detmold, but also for the Dukes of Lüneburg-Celle and the Electors of Hanover. Ernout executed most of the statuary groups in the gardens. Gourvil, a pupil at La Quintinie, laid them out. Lesigne, a pupil of Lebrun, was commissioned to do the frescoes. A Catalan, Giroud, was in charge of the iron and locksmith's work. Zeyer, a painter in lacquer and instructor to Princess Sophie-Dorothea, has left some charming work on the doors of the Herrenhausen Palace at Hanover and of the Palace of Lautenburg. Their accounts were hotly disputed by the stewards of these Sovereigns, and in many cases the princes themselves did not hesitate to suggest reductions in their own hands. I examined with great interest a long bill of Giroud's, exhibited by that artist before a Hanover tribunal in 1690, to justify his charges for the installation of a number of secret springs at the Herrenhausen. Duke Ernest-Augustus, the future Elector, failed to establish his case for reduction. At that date, at any rate, Hanover had judges who judged. I had decided in principle to confine my researches to the influence of France on the Courts of Germany in the seventeenth century. I had at my disposal a mass of documents, more than enough for Professor Thierry's purpose and comprising material for a book of my own. It is to that Zeyer, lacquer artist and instructor to Princess Sophie-Dorothea, that I owe the extension of my original plan. I found among his accounts a transcript of his evidence before the Commission of Enquiry which tried the unhappy Hanoverian sovereign. He is thus responsible for the events which were to follow. Vignerte stopped, thought a moment and then put an unexpected question. "Do you know the dramatic story of Count Philip Christopher of Königsmark?" For answer I repeated the following lines: